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.