too stiff for Maypole dancing.  But we who used to sigh for whole holidays can give them!  We can prepare the cakes and cream, and provide ribbons for the Maypole, and show how garlands were made in our young days.  We are very grateful for wild-flowers for the drawing-room.  To say the truth, they last longer with us than with the children, and perhaps we combine the delicate hues of spring, and lighten our nosegays by grass and sword-flags and rushes with more cunning fingers than those of the little ones who gathered them.

For these is reserved the real bloom of May-day!  And the orthodox customs are so various, that families of any size or age may pick and choose.  One brother and sister can be Lord and Lady of the May.  One sister among many brothers must be May Queen without opposition.  Those of the party most apt to catch cold in the treacherous sunshine and damp winds of spring should certainly represent the Winter Queen and her attendants, in the warmest possible clothing and the thickest of boots.  The morning air will then probably only do them a great deal of good.  It is not desirable to dig up the hawthorn-trees, or to try to do so, even with wooden spades.  The votive offering of flowers for her drawing-room should undoubtedly await Mamma when she comes down to breakfast, and I heartily wish her as abundant a variety as Mr. Cuthbert Bede saw on the Huntingdonshire garland.  That Nurse should have a bunch of May is only her due; and of course the nursery must be decorated.  Long strips of coloured calico form good ribbons for the Maypole.  Bows and arrows are easily made.  It is also easy to cut one’s fingers in notching the arrows.  When you are tired of dancing, you can be Robin Hood’s merry men, and shoot.  When all the arrows are lost, and you have begun to quarrel about the target, it will be well to hang up an old doll and throw balls at her nose.  Dressing-up is, at any time, a delightful amusement, and there is a large choice among May-day characters.  No wardrobe can fail to provide the perfectly optional costumes of Mad Moll and her husband.  There are generally some children who never will learn their parts, and who go astray from every pre-arranged plan.  By any two such the last-named characters should be represented.  In these, as in all children’s games, “the more the merrier”; and as there is no limit to the number of sweeps, the largest of families may revel in burnt cork, even if dust-pans in proportion fail.  If a bonfire is more appropriate to the weather than a Maypole, we have the comfort of feeling that it is equally correct.

It is hardly needful to impress upon the boys what vigour the blowing of horns and penny trumpets will impart to the ceremonies; but they may require to be reminded that Eton men in old days were only allowed to go a-Maying on condition that they did not wet their feet!