Where are you going to, my pretty maid?
I'm going a-milking, Sir, she said.
May I go with you, my pretty maid?
You're kindly welcome, Sir, she said.
Who is your father, my pretty maid?
My father's a farmer, Sir, she said.
Say will you marry me, my pretty maid?
Yes, if you please, kind Sir, she said.
What is your fortune, my pretty maid?
My face is my fortune, kind Sir, she said.
Then I won't marry you, my pretty maid!
Nobody ask'd you, Sir, she said.
'But why must she have some money?' asked April.
'I has got seven pfennings,' said June, trying not to look proud.
'First he says will she marry him, and then he says he doesn't want to?' asked April, wonderingly.
'But mummy, was she one really milkmaid?' asked May.
'Yes, she was going milking when he met her.'
'And so pretty?'
'Oh, she was so pretty that the moment he saw her he wanted to marry her.'
'I never did yet see one pretty milkmaid,' remarked May.
'Neither did I,' confessed the mother; neither has any one else where the babies lived. Sometimes they used to go into the cow-sheds, and though there were long rows of cows stretching away as far as they could see, and a great many milkmaids all busy milking, no one could ever have called them pretty, however hard they tried. They were very strong, and very big, and wore short skirts reaching to their knees, and had bare legs and feet, and they milked very well, and were altogether estimable, but they weren't pretty. Most of them were married, with large families, and were quite old; so that the gay little milkmaid tripping across the buttercups, with shoes and stockings on, and a face like a flower, was almost as difficult to impress on the babies' imaginations as the pie had been.