And she recited aloud in her dear, funny, old cracked voice-- "'Here comes three dukes a riding With a ransome, dansome, day.' "Then the lasses used to answer," she told us, "and cry out-- "'And what is your intent, sirs, intent, sirs? With a ransome, dansome, day.' "At this the lads used to shout-- "'My intent is to marry, to marry.' "And the maids would reply-- "'Will you marry one of my daughters, one of my daughters?' "Then the lads used to look highty-tighty, for all they had in their bones only the making of ploughmen, ditchers, and shepherds," Nana declared, "and they would say-- "'You be as stiff as pokers, as pokers.' And turn up their noses and strut back. "Then the maids would answer, mincing like-- "'We can bend like you, sirs, like you, sirs!' "Then the lads would scan the lasses up and down, and sing back, as if every one of 'em had been born a lord, or high sheriff of the county at least-- "'You're all too black and too blowsy, too blowsy For a dilly-dally officer.' "Then the maids would sing with a bit of spite-- "'We're good enough for you, sirs, good enough for you.' "Then a lad would leave his fellows, and say with a shrug of his shoulders, and crestfallen like-- "'If I must have one I will have this, So away with you my pretty miss.'" And then old Nana told us that the maids would laugh and the lads would jeer, for in turn each lad had to choose a lass, and sometimes the lass he had a mind to wouldn't go. [Sidenote: A RING OF ROSES] Then Nana, after a short pause, said, "Then there be another game as us used to play. Ring of Roses, some used to call it, and others Grandfather's Rheum. But I cannot remember but one verse-- "'A ring, a ring of roses, A pocket full of posies. One for Jack, and one for Jan And one for little Moses. A-tisha, a-tisha, a-tisha.' and the fun was who could sneeze loudest. I remember Mike Mallard and Mary Wilston was wonderful at it. 'Yer'll die in a sneeze,' folk used to tell them." "Nana can you think of no more, just one more." For Nana had beckoned to Bess to say good night and go. "Yes," I said, "just one more." So old Nana yielded to our united pleadings, asserted it must be only _one_, as it was high time for her lad and lass to be in bed, and ended by reciting aloud a strange old Shropshire rhyme-- "'Walking up the green grass, A dust, a frust, a dust. We want a pretty maid To walk along with us.' "The lads used to say that in a chorus," Nana explained. "Then the maids would answer-- "'Fiddle faddle--fiddle faddle.' "Then the boys would say--