"Lawks!" said she. But she did not wish to appear surprised, so she
went on to say she had met him on the way, and knew who he was.

"He's a Lindsay," said the oldest woman, with a nod of her
white-capped head. "I tried him wi' a buttercup. I held it under his
chin, and he loves butter. So he's a Lindsay; all the Lindsays love
butter. I know, for I was nurse in the family a hundred years ago."

This, of course, was conclusive evidence. Margary and her mother
had faith in the oldest woman's opinion; and so did all the other
villagers. She told a good many people how the little stranger was
a Lindsay, before she went to bed that night. And he really was a
Lindsay, too; though it was singular how the oldest woman divined it
with a buttercup.

The pretty child had straightway driven off in his coach-and-four as
soon as he had left Margary's mother's cottage; he had only stopped
to have some defect in the wheels remedied. But there had been time
enough for a great excitement to be stirred up in the village.

All any one talked about the next day, was the stranger. Every one who
had seen him, had some new and more marvelous item; till charming as
the child really was, he became, in the popular estimation, a real
fairy prince.

When Margary and the other children went to school, with their
horn-books hanging at their sides, they found the schoolmaster greatly
excited over it. He was a verse-maker, and though he had not seen the
stranger himself, his imagination more than made amends for that.
So the scholars were not under a very strict rule that day, for the
master was busy composing a poem about the stranger. Every now and
then a line of the poem got mixed in with the lessons.

The schoolmaster told in beautiful meters about the stranger's rich
attire, and his flowing locks of real gold wire, his lips like rubies,
and his eyes like diamonds. He furnished the little dog with hair of
real floss silk, and called his ribbon a silver chain. Then the coach,
as it rolled along, presented such a dazzling appearance, that several
persons who inadvertently looked at it had been blinded. It was the
schoolmaster's opinion, set forth in his poem, that this really was a
prince. One could scarcely doubt it, on reading the poem. It is a pity
it has not been preserved, but it was destroyed--how, will transpire
further on.

Well, two days after this dainty stranger with his coach-and-four
came to the village, a little wretched beggar