Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: July 11, 2025
The baskets of the gardeners and flower-girls were already empty, but the money-changers were full of business, and the tavern and gambling booths were driving a brisk trade.
Well then, the flower-girls come on first, scattering flowers; they proceed two by two and arrange themselves in line on both sides of the stage. They are followed by trumpeters and a herald; then come the ladies-in-waiting, the pages, the courtiers, and the palace servants. Very well; the first four lines, you know "Hail! hail! the festive day" that, of course, is sung by the sopranos.
Continue to sustain me, O thou whom Christ hath called Blessed! April 9th The fine evenings are come back; the trees begin to put forth their shoots; hyacinths, jonquils, violets, and lilacs perfume the baskets of the flower-girls all the world have begun their walks again on the quays and boulevards. After dinner, I, too, descend from my attic to breathe the evening air.
Richly ornamented chariots drawn by spirited horses, and driven by personages whose attire seemed to be a positive blaze of gold and gems, rolled past in a continuous procession, fruit-sellers, carrying their lovely luscious merchandise in huge gilded moss-wreathed baskets, stood at almost every corner, flower-girls, fair as flowers, bore aloft in their gracefully upraised arms wide wicker trays, overflowing with odorous blossoms tied into clusters and wreaths, and there were countless numbers of curious little open square carts to which mules, wearing collars of bells, were harnessed, the tinkle- tinkle of their constant passage through the throng making incessant merry music.
It was just one of London's flower-girls, one of the women who religiously meet the hospital trains and shower on the wounded soldiers the flowers they have not sold flowers, no doubt, held back from sale in most cases for this charitable purpose. When the attendants were moving me from the train and placing me on a stretcher, I was gently touched, and a large bunch of roses placed in my hand.
When she has done she starts off to walk a long way to a stand where she goes every day, perhaps a place where two or three streets join and there is an open space. There is one in the West End, where there is an island of pavement between lines of traffic north and south, east and west; the flower-girls sit here all day. They don't seem to mind the rain or wet at all; they are quite used to it.
The party, however, did not succeed in crossing the market-place without hindrance. They found it easy enough to evade the importunities of impudent fishsellers, and the friendly invitations of butchers, bakers, sausage and vegetable-sellers, and potters. But when they reached the part allotted to the flower-girls, Zopyrus was so enchanted with the scene, that he clapped his hands for joy.
Women of loose class, flower-girls, fruit-sellers, and costermongers turned the forecastle into a pleasure-house where the pleasures were not always secret; where native modesty suffered no affright, and physical good cheer, with ribald paraphrase, was notable everywhere. "How did it happen, Michael?"
It is well-nigh midnight, the hour when young London is most astir in his favorite haunts; when ragged and well-starved flower-girls, issuing from no one knows where, beset your path through Trafalgar and Liecester squares, and pierce your heart with their pleadings; when the Casinoes of the Haymarket and Picadilly are vomiting into the streets their frail but richly-dressed women; when gaudy supper-rooms, reeking of lobster and bad liquor, are made noisy with the demands of their flauntily-dressed customers; when little girls of thirteen are dodging in and out of mysterious courts and passages leading to and from Liecester square; when wily cabmen, ranged around the "great globe," importune you for a last fare; and when the aristocratic swell, with hectic face and maudlin laugh, saunters from his club-room to seek excitement in the revels at Vauxhall.
The man, however, would concede nothing but a permission to speak with his captive. Meanwhile his friends begged Zopyrus to tell them at once what had happened, and heard the following story: The thoughtless fellow had visited the flower-girls at dusk and remained till dawn.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking