Nor must we forget the "chummies," with their Jack-in-the-green, who, instead of sooty garments, cover in May their "innocent blackness" with spangles and tinsel. How Jack reels and staggers in the midst of his green portable arbour towards the close of the day! lurching aside like the massy trunk of a tree buried in ivy, which you expect every minute to fall; reminding us of Orpheus, and the life he put into the timber toes of the hoary old oaks when the forest trees stood bough linked with bough as they danced a merry reel, making all their green array of leaves to tremble again. Merrily does the "Sweepess," or "Jackess" of the green, jingle her bright brass ladle before the doors; and freely is the produce of that day spent in gin, until the drinking and fighting is ended, when, disrobed of their tinselled trappings, they snore happily on a couch of soft soot. Guy Fawkes still forms one of our London street amusements, though we regret to say that Guy is now oftener personated by some great hulking gin-drinking lazy fellow, than the old, uncouth stuffed figures which were frequently carried about, with one foot hanging down before and the other behind. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIX. SPRING-TIME IN LONDON. The cries of "All a-blowing! all a-growing!" are the first sounds with which the spring-flowers are ushered into the streets of London; and although not uttered by the lips of such fabled nymphs as the poets of old clothed in the richest hues of their imagination, and sent forth as attendants on blossom-bearing Spring, the voices still come like gentle greetings from old friends, all the sweeter through having been so long absent. Sometimes we see a pretty face looking out, through the homely bonnet, and behold a light and graceful form, and hear a clear musical voice calling out "Sweet primroses!" Another hurries along from street to street with the little basket balanced on her head, while with one hand she ever keeps throwing back the long silky hair that falls down and veils her deep violet-coloured eyes; and we think how some such figure haunted the poet's fancy when he peopled the vales of Arcady with the "sweet spirits of the flowers."