“Well, my man,” said he to Peter, “and what do you think of the wheel?” Peter did not know what to say, he was so much taken aback. “When I was a little boy,” said the miller, “I was just like you, and couldn’t keep away from a mill-wheel if there was one within twenty miles. ‘When I’m a man,’ said I, ‘it’s a miller I’ll be.’ And a miller I am.” But little Peter was still too much startled to understand friendliness. He pointed to the cottage over the road. “You won’t tell grandmother we came here?” he asked, his eyes filling with tears. “Not I,” said the miller. “She would beat him if you did,” remarked Janet. “That’s bad,” observed the miller, pushing his hat farther back. “I had a grandmother, too, when I was a little lad; she had a great cap and horn spectacles.” “And did she beat you?” said Peter, gaining courage. “Not she!” exclaimed the miller. “But she used to comfort me if anyone else did. Such fine tales she used to tell me, too—some out of a book and some out of her head! I’ve got the book in the house now.” Little Peter loved stories more than anything in the world, and every moment he was growing less afraid of the miller. “Oh, tell me one!” he cried. “Please tell me one!” “Sit down, then,” he said, “and you, too, my pretty lass. The first I can mind her telling me was about this very mill. Would you like to hear about that?” “Yes, yes!” cried little Peter. And so they sat down by the mill-lead, and the miller began his story. THE STORY OF THE WATER-NIX My grandmother was a wonderful woman (said he): there was nothing she heard that she ever forgot and she had a good education at her back, too. Not a thing happened but she could make a story out of it, and on the days when she went to market she used to take me with her in the cart; she would drive and I sat up beside her, and it was then I heard from her what I am going to tell you now. Long ago there lived in the deep water round the wheel a Water-Nix. She was the most beautiful lady ever seen, though it was not many had the luck to catch sight of her, for she seldom came out of her hiding-place near the walls. A body might live here a year and never see her. But sometimes, on light nights, she would dive under the door and swim out, and even sit up on the bank, with her thin white smock trailing in the water. Once—so grandmother said—the miller’s man saw her perched upon the wall by the road, just where the stream runs under it. The drops were falling off her white feet on to the grass—so he told grandmother—and though there was only a little crescent like a sickle in the sky that night, he could see the water-lilies twisted in her hair. She was laughing and holding up her arms at the moon. [Illustration: “ONCE . . . THE MILLER’S MAN SAW HER.”] And have _you_ ever seen her? inquired little Peter, his eyes round.