Then a spirit of revelry came over her. It would still be a long time till six o’clock. She would have time to rehearse for her night’s performance—a dance and a song. Happy thought! She would introduce an innovation. Back she ran now into the forest and commenced gathering an armful of the tenderest and prettiest fern-fronds and wild crimson silené flowers.
Peggy, like the thoughtful and handy little maid she was, never went anywhere without her ditty-bag. No girl who leads a wandering life should. It was hanging to her waist, and contained as many knick-knacks as you might find in an ordinary small work-box. Here were tape and a pair of scissors too, and these were about all she needed at present.
Standing in the glade close by the pool in which her shapely form was mirrored, she quickly and deftly adorned her hair with the wild-flowers; then she just as speedily made herself a tippet of fern-fronds, which she fastened around her shoulders, encircling her knees with fringes of the same. She glanced once more into the pool. She was satisfied, for she was really beautiful, and would remain so all the year round. Oh, the gladsome thought!
If I were merely romancing, I would say that the birds of the forest ceased to sing, and listened enraptured to the merry May maiden’s song, and that they gazed entranced to witness her dance, waving her arms and pirouetting to her own sweet lilt.
But the birds did nothing of the sort. Birds are sometimes a trifle prosaic and selfish, and even the chaffinch will not cease its bickering lilt to listen to the nightingale.
While Peggy was dancing, she was, I fear, thinking of nothing else except the effect she expected to produce that evening on the minds of the rustic lads and lasses who would gather round to see the performance of “The Forest Maiden,” at the camp of the Wandering Minstrels.
The girl’s head was well thrown back as she sang and danced, else surely she would have noticed the stealthy approach of two figures that had emerged from the forest at its darkest side, and were now almost within five yards of her.
They were both of the medium height, and though dressed in the cow-gowns of English rustics, were undoubtedly foreigners. They were handsome men, but very dark, with shaven faces and an unmistakable look of the stage about them.
As soon as Peggy saw them, she screamed in terror, and attempted to fly, but it was too
