lers put their instruments in tune, while
behind the open windows of a small, ruinous house, dwelt in by the sexton,
a rustic choir was trying over "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall Green."
Young men and maidens of the meaner sort, drawn from the surrounding
country, from small plantation, store and ordinary, mill and ferry, clad
in their holiday best and prone to laughter, strayed here and there, or,
walking up and down the river bank, where it commanded a view of both the
landing and the road, watched for the coming of the gentlefolk. Children,
too, were not lacking, but rolled amidst the buttercups or caught at the
ribbons flying from the Maypole, while aged folk sat in the sun, and a
procession of wide-lipped negroes, carrying benches and chairs, advanced
to the shaven green and put the seats in order about the sylvan stage. It
was but nine of the clock, and the shadow of the Maypole was long upon the
grass. Along the slightly rising ground behind the meadow stretched an
apple orchard in full bloom, and between that line of rose and snow and
the lapping of the tide upon the yellow sands lay, for the length of a
spring day, the kingdom of all content.

The shadow of the Maypole was not much shrunken when the guests of the
house of Jaquelin began to arrive. First to come, and from farthest away,
was Mr. Richard Ambler, of Yorktown, who had ridden from that place to
Williamsburgh the afternoon before, and had that morning used the
planter's pace to Jamestown,--his industry being due to the fact that he
was courting the May Queen's elder sister. Following him came five Lees in
a chariot, then a delegation of Burwells, then two Digges in a chaise. A
Bland and a Bassett and a Randolph came on horseback, while a barge
brought up river a bevy of blooming Carters, a white-sailed sloop from
Warwick landed a dozen Carys, great and small, and two periaguas, filled
with Harrisons, Aliens, and Cockes, shot over from the Surrey shore.

From a stand at one end of the grassy stage, trumpet and drum proclaimed
that the company had gathered beneath the sycamores before the house, and
was about to enter the meadow. Shrill-voiced mothers warned their
children from the Maypole, the fiddlers ceased their twanging, and Pretty
Bessee, her name cut in twain, died upon the air. The throng of humble
folk--largely made up of contestants for the prizes of the day, and of
their friends and kindred--scurried to its appointed place, and with the
is