other.

"Oh!" cried Rosamond, "did you see his hat and feather?"

"And his lace Vandyke, and the fluffy white dog!" cried Barbara. But
Margary said nothing. In her heart, she thought she had never seen any
one so lovely.

Then she went on to the well with her pitcher, and Rosamond and
Barbara went home, telling every one they met about the beautiful
little stranger.

[Illustration: THE LITTLE STRANGER.]

Margary, after she had filled her pitcher, went home also; and was
beginning to talk about the stranger to her mother, when a shadow fell
across the floor from the doorway. Margary looked up. "There he is
now!" cried she in a joyful whisper.

The pretty boy stood there indeed, looking in modestly and wishfully.
Margary's mother arose at once from her spinning-wheel, and came
forward; she was a very courteous woman. "Wilt thou enter, and rest
thyself," said she, "and have a cup of our porridge, and a slice of
our wheaten bread, and a bit of honeycomb?"

The little boy sniffed hungrily at the porridge which was just
beginning to boil; he hesitated a moment, but finally thanked the good
woman very softly and sweetly and entered.

Then Margary and her mother set a bottle of cowslip wine on the table,
slices of wheaten bread, and a plate of honeycomb, a bowl of ripe
raspberries, and a little jug of yellow cream, and another little bowl
with a garland of roses around the rim, for the porridge. Just as soon
as that was cooked, the stranger sat down, and ate a supper fit for a
prince. Margary and her mother half supposed he was one; he had such a
courtly, yet modest air.

When he had eaten his fill, and his little dog had been fed too, he
offered his entertainers some gold out of a little silk purse, but
they would not take it.

So he took hold of his dog's ribbon, and went away with many thanks.
"We shall never see him again," said Margary sorrowfully.

"The memory of a stranger one has fed, is a pleasant one," said her
mother.

"I am glad the lark sang so beautifully all the while he was eating,"
said Margary.

While they were eating their own supper, the oldest woman in the
village came in. She was one hundred and twenty years old, and, by
reason of her great age, was considered very wise.

"Have you seen the stranger?" asked she in her piping voice, seating
herself stiffly.

"Yes," replied Margary's mother. "He hath supped with us."

The oldest woman twinkled her eyes behind her iron-bowed spectacles.