instantly!"

"My pretty ones," laughed Martin Pippin, "songs are as light as air,
but worth more than pearls and diamonds. What will you give me for
my song? Wait, now!--I have it. You shall fetch me the ring from the
finger of your little mistress, who sits hidden beneath the fountain
of her own bright tresses."

The milkmaids at these words nodded gayly, and little Joan tip-toed
to the Well-House, and slipped the ring from Gillian's finger as
lightly as a daisy may be slipped from its fellow on the chain. Then
she ran with it to the gate, and Martin held up his little finger,
and she put it on, saying:

"Now you will keep your promise, honey-sweet singer, and play a
dance for a May evening when the blossom blows for happiness on the
apple-trees."

So Martin Pippin tuned his lute and sang what follows, while the
girls floated in ones and twos among the orchard grass:

A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?
Fairy ships rocking with pink sails and white
Smoothly as swans on a river of light
Saw I a-floating?
No, it was apple-bloom, rosy and fair,
Softly obeying the nod of the air
I saw a-floating.
A-floating, a-floating, what saw I a-floating?
White clouds at eventide blown to and fro