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“Margary,” said her mother, “take the pitcher now, and fetch me some fresh, cool water from the well, and I will cook the porridge for supper.”

“Yes, mother,” said Margary. Then she put on her little white dimity hood, and got the pitcher, which was charmingly shaped, from the cupboard shelf. The cupboard was a three-cornered one beside the chimney. The cottage which Margary and her mother lived in, was very humble, to be sure, but it was very pretty. Vines grew all over it, and flowering bushes crowded close to the diamond-paned windows. There was a little garden at one side, with beds of pinks and violets in it, and a straw-covered beehive, and some raspberry bushes all yellow with fruit.

Inside the cottage, the floor was sanded with the whitest sand; lovely old straight-backed chairs stood about; there was an oaken table, and a spinning-wheel. A wicker cage, with a lark in it, hung in the window.

Margary with her pitcher, tripped along to the village well. On the way she met two of her little mates–Rosamond and Barbara. They were flying along, their cheeks very rosy and their eyes shining.

“O, Margary,” they cried, “come up to the tavern, quick, and see! The most beautiful coach-and-four is drawn up there. There are lackeys in green and gold, with cocked hats, and the coach hath a crest on the side–O, Margary!”

Margary’s eyes grew large too, and she turned about with her empty pitcher and followed her friends. They had almost reached the tavern, and were in full sight of the coach-and-four, when some one coming toward them caused them to draw up on one side of the way and stare with new wonder. It was a most beautiful little boy. His golden curls hung to his shoulders, his sweet face had an expression at once gentle and noble, and his dress was of the richest material. He led a little flossy white dog by a ribbon.

After he had passed by, the three little girls looked at each 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.

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.