Two dozen rosy little country children and more came to my door this morning, with their little nosegays of cowslips, primroses, blue-bells, and cuckoo-flowers, tied at the top of small peeled wands, chanting their artless rhyme of “Please to remember the first of May, For ’tis the ladies’ garland-day;” which Mr. Sidney thinks a variation from “For ’tis _Our Lady’s_ garland-day.” However that may be, who can refrain from giving halfpence and biscuits to the pretty little rogues? The white-headed milkman is carrying quite a beau-pot of garden and hothouse flowers, on the inverted lid of his milk-pail, from house to house, this afternoon, hoping for a sixpence or shilling here and there, which may meetly be granted to his grey hairs and laborious life. For, in hot afternoons, along the shadeless road, and long before dawn, on inhospitable winter mornings, in face of hail, snow, rain, or ice, this old man punctually fulfils his vocation, which none should heedlessly call light. He is one of our country worthies. Another is the postman, who brings our letters at six in the morning, and calls for those we wish to post at seven in the evening; a stalwart, Robinson Crusoe-like looking man, with cheery voice and intrepid mien, who wears a brigand-like high-crowned hat, enormously thick boots, and a leathern belt, and padlocked bag. I know his swift, steady tramp from afar, and like to hear his blithe “good-night” to Phillis. This man’s name is Love. Phillis did not know him or his name when she first came here, and finding such a formidable-looking personage at the door about dusk, asked him somewhat bluntly—“Who are you?”—“Love,” said he, with equal curtness. “Nonsense!” said Phillis. On which he burst out laughing, and assured her it was his true-born surname, and that he had no other, except that which was given him by his godfathers and godmothers. Whereupon Phillis, as she averred afterwards, was ready to bite her tongue off for speaking such a foolish word, and for a long time she hated to answer the door to him; but gradually they have become cronies (I believe he is equally civil to all the servants along the road), and she even sometimes asks after his wife. * * * * *