flowers, and shouting and singing till it seemed the whole colony was up and mad. Mistress Catherine and I stood well to one side to let them pass by, but when the morris dancers reached us, and caught sight of Catherine in her green robes standing among the green bushes, above which her fair face looked, half with dismay, half with a quick leap of sympathy with the merriment, for there was in this girl a strange spirit of misrule beneath all her quiet, and I verily believe that, had she but let loose the leash in which she held herself, would have joined those dancing and singing lasses and been outdone by none, there was a sudden halt; then, before I knew what was to happen, around her leapt a laughing score of them, shouting that here was the true Maid Marion, and that old John Lubberkin could now resign his post. Then off the hobby-horse they tumbled him, and the lads and lasses gathering around her, and the graybeards standing aloof with some chagrin, would, I believe, in spite of me, since they outnumbered me vastly, have forced Catherine into that rude pageant as Maid Marion. But while I was thrusting them aside, holding myself before her as firmly as I might, there came a quick clatter of hoofs, and Mistress Mary had dashed alongside on Merry Roger. She scattered the merry revellers right and left, calling out to her sister to go homeward with a laugh. "Fie on thee, Catherine!" she cried out. "If thou art abroad on a May morning dressed like the queen of it, what blame can there be to these good folk for giving thee thy queendom?"