depended on it.




CHAPTER V.

THE BLUE PLATTER.


"Merry it is in the green forést,
Among the leavés green!"

Thus sang Hildegarde as she sat in the west window, busily stringing her
currants. She had been thinking a great deal about Bubble Chirk, making
plans for his education, and wondering what his sister Pink was like. He
reminded her, she could not tell why, of the "lytel boy" who kept fair
Alyce's swine, in her favorite ballad of "Adam Bell, Clym o' the Clough,
and William of Cloudeslee;" and the words of the ballad rose half
unconsciously to her lips as she bent over the great yellow bowl, heaped
with scarlet and pale-gold clusters.

"Merry it is in the green forést,
Among the leavés green,
Whenas men hunt east and west
With bows and arrowés keen,

"For to raise the deer out of their denne,--
Such sights have oft been seen;
As by three yemen of the north countree: