"I am just ashamed of the old nonsense," she said, blushing like a girl, "but since it will amuse your mama," and she turned to Bess, "I'll try my best." And Nana, in a funny old husky voice, with the Shropshire accent growing stronger and stronger at every line repeated-- "'Wallflowers, wallflowers, wallflowers up so high, Us shall all be maidens, and so us will die. Excepting Alice Gittens--she is the youngest flower, She can hop, and she can skip, and she can play the hour, Three and four, and four and five, Turn your back to the wall side.'" And thereupon old Nana, animated by old recollections, turned her back upon me and stood facing the old bowling-green. [Sidenote: QUEEN BESS'S GAME] "Well done!" cried both children simultaneously. And then Bess called for "Nuts in May." "You know, what we played last Christmas, when we could'nt go out," she explained, "because the snow was so deep." For a moment Nana looked puzzled. "You ought to recollect that," cried Bess, "because it was you that learnt us it before." Nana thought for a minute, and then repeated the old Shropshire version of the ancient game, which, tradition says, was written by Queen Bess one Christmas time for Lord Burleigh's children. But Nana first of all explained to us the action of the game. "You must know, mam," she said, "that there are two parties--one of lads and the other of lasses." "The first come up and call (the lads)-- "'Here we come gathering nuts in May, Nuts in May, nuts in May, Here we come gathering nuts in May On a cold and frosty morning.' "Then the second lot," as Nana called the lasses, "answer back, and shout-- "'Who have ye come to gather away?' And the first lot (the lads) reply-- "'We have come to gather sweet Maude away.' 'And who will you send to fetch her away?' 'We'll send Corney Rodgers to fetch her away.' "Then the two parties pull," she added, "and in the end a lass has to leave, and to go over to the lads' side." "Who was sweet Maude, and who was Corney Rodgers?" I asked of Nana. But she declared she didn't know for certain, "but most-like he was some bad bold man who lived in the hills, and took off any maid he had a mind to." "Go on, go on!" cried the children enthusiastically, and clapped Nana vociferously. "You know them all," exclaimed Bess, "although you like pretending; but nurses always do." At this Nana, for all her head of snow, fell a laughing. She forgot all about "bedtime," and stood before us with pink cheeks, whilst she exclaimed-- "They comes back! They comes back, the old plays." And therewith begins to repeat "Here comes Three Dukes a Riding." "Us used to play that--and a right pretty game it was," she explained,--"on the village green, when the leaves were budding, betwixt the hours of school."