And the refrain was: She wore a lov-e-lie bonnet With fruit end flowers upon it, End she dwelt in the henvirons of 'Ol-lo-w'y! As yet only men had sung; solicitation had failed with such of the girls as were known to be musically given.

Yet an earnest prayer from the chairman succeeded at length in overcoming the diffidence of one.
She was a pale, unhealthy thing, and wore an ugly-shaped hat with a gruesome green feather; she sang with her eyes down, and in a voice which did not lack a certain sweetness.

The ballad was of springtime and the country and love.
Underneath the May-tree blossoms Oft we've wandered, you and I, Listening to the mill-stream's whisper, Like a stream soft-gliding by.
The girl had a drunken mother, and spent a month or two of every year in the hospital, for her day's work overtaxed her strength.

She was one of those fated toilers, to struggle on as long as any one would employ her, then to fall among the forgotten wretched.

And she sang of May-bloom and love; of love that had never come near her and that she would never know; sang, with her eyes upon the beer-stained table, in a public-house amid the backways of Lambeth.
Totty Nancarrow was whispering to Thyrza: 'Sing something, old girl! Why shouldn't you ?' Annie West was also at hand, urging the same.
'Let 'em hear some real singing, Thyrza.