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The miller was so surprised that he stopped singing and gazed with big eyes at the beautiful face of the little stranger. And while he gazed its eyes opened–two beautiful, pleading blue eyes,–and the little one smiled and stretched out her arms toward him.

“Well, well!” said the miller, “where on earth did you come from?”

The baby did not reply, but she tried to, and made some soft little noises that sounded like the cooing of a pigeon.

The tiny arms were still stretched upwards, and the miller bent down and tenderly lifted the child from the box and placed her upon his knee, and then he began to stroke the soft, silken ringlets that clustered around her head, and to look upon her wonderingly.

The baby leaned against his breast and fell asleep again, and the miller became greatly troubled, for he was unused to babies and did not know how to handle them or care for them. But he sat very still until the little one awoke, and then, thinking it must be hungry, he brought some sweet milk and fed her with a spoon. The baby smiled at him and ate the milk as if it liked it, and then one little dimpled hand caught hold of the miller’s whiskers and pulled sturdily, while the baby jumped its little body up and down and cooed its delight.

Do you think the miller was angry? Not a bit of it! He smiled back into the laughing face and let her pull his whiskers as much as she liked. For his whole heart had gone out to this little waif that he rescued from the river, and at last the solitary man had found something to love.

The baby slept that night in the miller’s own bed, snugly tucked in beside the miller himself; and in the morning he fed her milk again, and then went out to work singing more merrily than ever.

Every few minutes he would put his head into the room where he had left the child, to see if it wanted anything, and if it cried even the least bit he would run in and take it in his arms and soothe the little girl until she smiled again.

That first day the miller was fearful some one would come and claim the child, but when evening came without the arrival of any stranger he decided the baby had been cast adrift and now belonged to nobody but him.

“I shall keep her as long as I live,” he thought, “and never will we be separated for even a day. For now that I have found some one to love I could not bear to let her go again.”

He cared for the waif very tenderly; and as the child was strong and healthy she was not much trouble to him, and to his delight grew bigger day by day.

The country people were filled with surprise when they saw a child in the mill-house, and wondered where it came from; but the miller would answer no questions, and as year after year passed away they forgot to enquire how the child came there and looked upon her as the miller’s own daughter.

She grew to be a sweet and pretty child, and was the miller’s constant companion. She called him “papa,” and he called her Nathalie, because he had found her upon the water, and the country people called her the Maid of the Mill.

The miller worked harder than ever before, for now he had to feed and clothe the little girl; and he sang from morn till night, so joyous was he, and still his song was:

“I care for nobody, no! not I,
Since nobody cares for me.”

One day, while he was singing this, he heard a sob beside him, and looked down to see Nathalie weeping.

“What is it, my pet?” he asked, anxiously.

“Oh, papa,” she answered, “why do you sing that nobody cares for you, when you know I love you so dearly?”