he third
time she struggled through the ground, lifting up her head among the
blue-eyed violets and slender waving grasses.

She shook out her petals in the sunlight, and smiled as sweetly as a
primrose can smile; but the spring days went by, and the summer was
almost over, before any one took any notice of her.

The poor little primrose was almost ready to die of despair, when one
day, looking up quite suddenly, she saw the face of an old man bending
over her.

He had gray hair and kind gray eyes; and as he looked at the flower he
smiled tenderly, as if he were looking at something that he loved.

The flower smiled in turn, but could not speak.

"You must go home with me, little primrose," said the old man, stooping
over the flower.

The fact that this gray-haired, gray-eyed old man was a poet will
account, perhaps, for his talking to a flower as if it could understand
what he said. At all events, he broke it from the stem, and when he
reached his home placed it in a glass of water, saying,

"There you must stay, my little flower, until I can write a poem worthy
of your bright face."

No sooner had he uttered these words than he saw standing before him a
young girl with golden hair and softly shining eyes.

"Bless me! bless me!" exclaimed the old man, in great surprise, taking
off the spectacles which he had so carefully adjusted across his nose,
"where did you come from, my lady?"

"I came from the flower," she said; and she threw her arms round his
neck and kissed him on the lips.

She was so delighted at her escape that she was not wholly responsible
for her actions; and if she cried a little, I don't think any one will
blame her.

Laughing and crying at the same time, and half wild with excitement, she
told her new friend the story of her life for the past few years; and
he, in his turn, smiled and wept a little, perhaps, and then he kissed
her on the lips, and said,

"Henceforth, my dear girl, you shall be known as the Lady Primrose, and
you shall stay with me as long as you will."

Whether or no he ever wrote a poem about her I can not tell. All I know
is that she lived with him for the rest of her life, and was the
sweetest and happiest Lady Primrose imaginable.

The house was as full of flowers as it could hold, and when the wise old
woman of Hollowbush, who, you may be sure, had not forgotten her, asked
her if she did not want another diamond necklace, Lady Primrose would
answer:

"I don'