And here the Hither folk were varying their idleness by a general holiday.

They were standing about in groups, or lying ranked like new-plucked flowers on the banks, piping to each other through reeds as soft and melodious as running water.

They were playing inconsequent games and breaking off in the middle of them like children looking for new pleasures.

They were idling about the drinking booths, delicately stupid with quaint, thin wines, dealt out to all who asked; the maids were ready to chevy or be chevied through the blossoming thickets by anyone who chanced upon them, the men slipped their arms round slender waists and wandered down the paths, scarce seeming to care even whose waist it was they circled or into whose ear they whispered the remainder of the love-tale they had begun to some one else.

And everywhere it was "Hi," and "Ha," and "So," and "See," as these quaint people called to one another, knowing each other as familiarly as ants of a nest, and by the same magic it seemed to me.
"An," I said presently, when we had wandered an hour or so through the drifting throng, "have these good countrymen of yours no other names but monosyllabic, nothing to designate them but these chirruping syllables ?" "Is it not enough ?" answered my companion.