"Do you love Laddie so dearly?" she asked. My heart was full of him right then; I forgot all about when I had the fever, and as I never had been taught to lie, I told her what I thought was the truth, and I guess it WAS: "Best of any one in all this world!" The Princess looked across the field, where she must have seen him finishing the plowing, and thought that over, and I waited, sure in my mind, for some reason, that she would not go for a little while longer. "I have been wanting to see you," she said at last. "In fact I think I came this way hoping I'd meet you. Do you know the words to a tune that goes like this?" Then she began to whistle "The Merry Farmer Boy." I wish you might have heard the flourishes she put to it. "Of course I do," I answered. "All of us were brought up on it." "Well, I have some slight curiosity to learn what they are," she said. "Would you kindly repeat them for me?" "Yes," I said. "This is the first verse: "'See the merry farmer boy tramp the meadows through, Swing his hoe in careless joy while dashing off the dew. Bobolink in maple high----' "Of course you can see for yourself that they're not. There isn't a single one of them higher than a fence post. The person who wrote the piece had to put it that way so high would rhyme with reply, which is coming in the next line." "I see!" said the Princess. "'Bobolink in maple high, trills a note of glee Farmer boy a gay reply now whistles cheerily.' "Then you whistle the chorus like you did it." "You do indeed!" said the Princess. "Proceed!" "'Then the farmer boy at noon, rests beneath the shade, Listening to the ceaseless tune that's thrilling through the glade. Long and loud the harvest fly winds his bugle round, Long, and loud, and shrill, and high, he whistles back the sound.'" "He does! He does indeed! I haven't a doubt about that!" cried the Princess. "'Long, and loud, and shrill, and high,' he whistles over and over the sound, until it becomes maddening. Is that all of that melodious, entrancing production?" "No, evening comes yet. The last verse goes this way: "'When the busy day's employ, ends at dewy eve, Then the happy farmer boy, doth haste his work to leave, Trudging down the quiet lane, climbing o'er the hill, Whistling back the changeless wail, of plaintive whip-poor-will,'-- and then you do the chorus again, and if you know how well enough you whistle in, 'whip-poor-will,' 'til the birds will answer you. Laddie often makes them." "My life!" cried the Princess. "Was that he doing those bird cries? Why, I hunted, and hunted, and so did father. We'd never seen a whip-poor-will. Just fancy us!" "If you'd only looked at Laddie," I said. "My patience!" cried the Princess. "Looked at him! There was no place to look without seeing him. And that ear-splitting thing will ring in my head forever, I know." "Did he whistle it too high to suit you, Princess?"