And Johnny has got his Joan,
To trip it, trip it, trip it, trip it,
Trip it up and down.
"You're out!" says Dick, "not I," says Nick,
"'Twas the fiddler play'd it wrong."
"'Tis true," says Hugh, and so says Sue,
And so says ev'ry one;
The fiddler then began
To play the tune again.
And ev'ry girl did trip it, trip it,
Trip it to the men.
Then when feast and dance and song were all over, it was time to re-form the procession and take up the homeward march. The two sisters, Florence and Parthe, had disappeared during the dancing; but now, as the procession passed along the terrace, there they were, standing behind a long table; a table at sight of which the children's eyes grew round and bright, for it was covered from end to end with presents. Such delightful presents! Books, and pretty boxes and baskets, thimble-cases and needle-books and pin-cushions; dolls, too, I am sure, for the little ones, and scrapbooks, and — but you can fill up the list for yourself with everything you like best in the way of pretty, simple, useful gifts. I am quite sure that Florence would not have wished to give the children foolish or elaborate gimcracks, and that Mr. Nightingale would never have allowed it if she had; and I think it probable that many of the gifts were made by the two sisters and their kind and clever mother.
All about Lea Hurst, in many and many a pleasant cottage home, those little gifts are treasured to-day like the relics of some blessed saint; which indeed is just what they are. The saint is still living, and some of the children of the school feasts are living, too, and now in their age will show with pride and joy the gifts they received long ago from the hands of the beloved Miss Florence.
As Florence grew up to womanhood she found more and more work to do. There were mills and factories in the neighborhood of Lea Hurst; and in the hosiery mills, especially, hundreds of women and girls were employed, many of whom lived on the Nightingale estate.
She may have been seventeen or eighteen when she started her Bible class for the young women of the district, holding it in the tiny ancient chapel at Lea Hurst which I described in the first chapter. Gathering the girls around her, she would read a chapter from the Bible, and then give them her thoughts about it, and explain the difficult passages; then they would all sing together, her sweet, clear voice leading the hymns. Here is another memory very precious to the old women who were once those happy girls. They love to tell " how beautifully Miss Florence used to talk."
Long years after, when Miss Nightingale, spent with her noble labors, would come to Lea Hurst for a time of rest and refreshment, the daughters of these girls counted it a high privilege to gather on the lawn under her window and sing to her as she sat in the room above; and would go home proud and happy as queens if they had seen the saintly face smiHng" from the window.
Shall I try to show you Florence Nightingale at seventeen? Her face was little changed from that of the girl we saw in the cottage, cheering old Goody Brown. She still wore her hair brushed smoothly " Madonna-wise " on either side her face; often, now, she wore a rose at the side, tucked in among the shining braids or coils. You would think her frocks very queer if you saw them today, but then they were extremely pretty; full skirts (no crinoline! that was to come later) and full sleeves, with broad flat collar of lace or embroidery. When she went to church or to make visits she wore a spencer, a kind of full plaited jacket with a belt, something like a Norfolk jacket — only different! and a Leghorn bonnet. You have seen pictures of the Leghorn bonnets of the Thirties and Forties; " coal-scuttles," some people called them, and they were something the shape of a scuttle. Some of them were enormous in size, and they look queer enough now in the pictures, or — if your grandmamma had a way of keeping things — in the " dress-up " trunk or cupboard in the attic. But people who were young in those days tell me that they were extremely becoming, and that a pretty face never looked prettier that when it peeped out from the depths of a huge straw " coal-scuttle."