“Sing ‘Lord Ronald and Fair Eleanor,’” whispered Molly. “I want Professor Green to hear it.”
The two Kentucky girls made a wonderfully
charming picture.—Page 252.
The two Kentucky girls made a wonderfully charming picture as they took their places to do their part toward entertaining the guests—Molly so fair and slender in her pretty blue dress, with her hair “making sunshine in a shady place,” seated with the guitar, while Melissa, tall and stately, with figure more developed, in her clinging black dress stood near her. Judy was so overcome at the picturesque effect that she began to make rapid sketching movements in the air as was her wont.
“Oh, what don’t we see when we haven’t got a gun! I’d give anything for a piece of charcoal and some paper.”
“I don’t know all of this song, but I shall sing all I do. I learned it from my grandmother, and she learned it from hers. This is all Granny knows, but she says her grandmother had many more verses,” said Melissa as Molly struck the opening chords of the accompaniment.
“So she dressed herself in scarlet red,
And she dressed her maid in green,
And every town that they went through
They took her to be some queen, queen, queen,
They took her to be some queen.
“‘Lord Ronald, Lord Ronald, is this your bride
That seems so plaguey brown?
And you might have married as fair skinned a girl
As ever the sun shone on, on, on,
As ever the sun shone on.’
“The little brown girl, she had a penknife,
It was both long and sharp;
She stuck it in fair Eleanor’s side
And it entered at the heart, heart, heart,
It entered at the heart.
“Lord Ronald, he took her by her little brown hand
And led her across the hall;
And with his sword cut off her head,
And kicked it against the wall, wall, wall,
And kicked it against the wall.
“‘Mother, dear mother, come dig my grave;
Dig it both wide and deep.
By my side fair Eleanor put,
And the little brown girl at my feet, feet, feet,
And the little brown girl at my feet.’”