And running toward Belle-bouche, the girl told her that they really must have her in the garden "before the procession commenced."
Poor Jacques drew back groaning.
"There's another chance gone!" he sighed; "what luck I have! I'm always interrupted, and the fates are leagued against me."
Belle-bouche left him with a blush and a smile, and disappeared.
Ten minutes afterwards the company had reassembled on the lawn, and seemed to be anxiously expecting something.
This something suddenly made its appearance, and advanced into the open space with merriment and laughter.
It was a party of young girls who, clad in all the colors of the rainbow, bore in their midst a pyramid of silver dishes wreathed with flowers, and overflowing with strawberries and early fruits. It was a revival of the old May-day ceremonies in London, when the milkmaids wreathed their buckets with flowers, and passed from door to door, singing and asking presents. Jacques had arranged it all—the philosophic and antiquarian Jacques; and with equal taste he had selected the beautiful verses of Marlow or Shakspeare, for the chorus of maidens.
The maidens approached the company, therefore, merrily singing, in their childlike voices, the song:
"Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, or hills, or fields,
Or woods and steepy mountains yields;
"Where we will sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed our flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.