CHAPTER I.
Bright, gladsome May-day!—the fairest maiden in all the train of the merry "Queen of Seasons." May-day! what happy scenes this word recalls—the day of all days for childhood's pleasures! I see the little darlings tripping along the streets of my native town with baskets on their chubby arms, smiles on their lips, and happiness in their eyes, soon clustered in merry groups on some favorite spot in the suburbs, laughing and chatting, arranging their pic-nic dinners, or sporting beneath the shady trees.
But to my story. A mile or two from the village of A. were collected some fifty or sixty little girls and boys, for the purpose of celebrating their annual holiday. The May-pole, bedecked with flowers of every hue and form, towered aloft, and around its base they frisked and gamboled like so many little fairies. Some were "wafted in the silken swing" high up among the boughs of the beech and elm; others sought the brink of the rippling rivulet, and amused themselves with ruffling its smooth surface or looking at their mirrored faces. Far down the streamlet, and alone, was quietly seated a little girl, weaving into garlands the buds and blossoms which grew around her in wild profusion, caroling with a bird-like voice snatches of some favorite air, ever and anon raising her violet eyes and looking round her in wondrous delight. Her childish face was strikingly beautiful; around her small perfect mouth there rested an angel smile, and her short brown curls were parted on a forehead of matchless contour.
She wove and sang, and smiled a sunny smile, and seemed wholly unconscious of a pair of bright black eyes fixed upon her from the opposite bank. At length she turned, as if to listen; and soon upon the air floated distinctly sounds of "Alice! little Alice!" and she bounded away to her playmates. No sooner had she disappeared than the owner of the black eyes—a boy, seemingly of twelve years, clad in a green jacket ornamented with silver buttons, loose white trowsers, and wide-brimmed straw hat, which but partly concealed his glossy black hair—sprang across the water and possessed himself of the tiny glove which lay forgotten on the bank, and which had once covered the hand of "little Alice."
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"Alice, my dove, you have brought but one glove from the May frolic."
"I lost the other one yesterday. I don't think I forgot it May-day, mamma."
"Well, dear, go put this one away until you find the mate."
"Yes, mamma."
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