* THE GIPSY SOLDIER The gipsy wife came to my door with pegs and brooms to sell They make by many a roadside fire and many a greenwood dell, With bee-skeps and with baskets wove of osier, rush and sedge, And withies from the river-beds and brambles from the hedge.

One evening he went to a cottager who had a row of skeps, and bought one of them, just as it was after the man had smothered the bees.

The skep full was indeed a wonderful feast for them, they bit greedily into the heavy scented comb, their jaws were drowned in the sticky flood of sweetness, and they gorged themselves on it without restraint.

When they had crunched up the last morsel they tore the skep in pieces, and for hours afterwards they were happily employed in licking themselves clean.

"They're the likest things to bee-skeps I ever saw," remarked Saunders, as he and his party stood contemplating the little group of huts.