"A fine fellow, think you not so?" said the fisherman, as the child checked her little skiff for a moment in its onward course, to gaze with admiring eyes at the beautiful salmon he had just landed. "Dad has never caught one so big," answered Little Miss Primrose, nodding an admiring assent, and favouring the stranger with a swift glance out of her dark-fringed eyes. "There are beautiful fish in the river, sir; I often go out fishing with my father." "Beshrew me if I know not your sweet face!" said the stranger, "and if I mistake not, I know your coracle, fair maiden, likewise. Are you not both the property of Jack the boatman?" "Yes, sir," answered the child with a smile. "Do you know my father?--Not my real father, you know, but I love him just as much." "I know him right well," said the fisherman, "and he is verily one of the best fellows I know! So you are Little Miss Primrose?" "Yes," she answered, "that is the name dad says I told him I was called when I was a little baby. He does not know if I have any other name whatever." "It is a very pretty name, and well suited to so fair a flower!" said the stranger gallantly. "But the primrose was only a little opening bud when I saw it last! How many years ago? Why, eight or nine, if I mistake not! Now behold, it is just blossoming into a full-grown flower. Jack must needs ere long cease to call you _Little_ Miss Primrose!" "Ah, not yet, please sir!" she said earnestly. "I would fain not be grown-up yet awhile! I am but fourteen years old, and dad will call me his 'little girl' a long time yet, I hope." "Well, if you are not 'dad's' own little girl," said the stranger, "whose are you? Methinks it were a pity so tender a blossom should be tossed about by every chance wind! Are you a fairy or a changeling?" "I do not know, sir," answered Primrose gravely. "No one knows. My mother sends dad money twice every year for his care of me, but I do not know why she left me with him when I was a little baby, and I know not if I shall ever see her. I care not greatly to find a new father, for I love dad so much; but sometimes I would fain have a mother like other children!" "And is that all this little heart craves?" said the stranger. "Are you verily well content to dwell with my old friend Jack, haunting alone these silent river-banks like some golden-haired water-sprite?" "Quite content," she answered, with a little emphatic nod of the pretty golden head. "A mother is the only thing I would like." "Alas!" said the stranger. "Would that _I_ had such a spirit of sweet content that one gift of the gods could render me supremely happy! But how is this fair head stored with knowledge? Craves it indeed no key to this world's mysteries than such as yon Dame School madam can supply? Are these great unfathomable eyes content to look forth into the years but through the narrow spectacles she fits upon the brows of her scholars?" "Ah, I did not mean I was content with