"It will be a wet month when there are two full moons in it."
Certainly the maidens of Blackmore have a benediction upon them, granted them for their homeliness and kindness. Their eyes are quiet and yet fearless, and all the maids have something wifely about them. William Barnes, the poet of the Dorset valley, praising the Blackmoor maidens, says:
"Why, if a man would wive
An' thrive 'ithout a dow'r,
Then let en look en out a wife
In Blackmore by the Stour."
William Barnes was not a wild wooer, and he found joy and adventure in a smile and a blush from a Blackmore milkmaid after having carried her pail, and he was satisfied to know that she would have bowed when she took it back had it not been too heavy. Perhaps—O dizzy fancy!—sweet Nan of the Vale would not have refused a little kiss! At all events Barnes knew womanhood in its perfection when he met with it—the maid who was "good and true and fair" was his preference.