The fact that this gray-haired, gray-eyed old man was a poet will account, perhaps, for his talking to a flower as if it could understand what he said. At all events, he broke it from the stem, and when he reached his home placed it in a glass of water, saying,
"There you must stay, my little flower, until I can write a poem worthy of your bright face."
No sooner had he uttered these words than he saw standing before him a young girl with golden hair and softly shining eyes.
"Bless me! bless me!" exclaimed the old man, in great surprise, taking off the spectacles which he had so carefully adjusted across his nose, "where did you come from, my lady?"
"I came from the flower," she said; and she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him on the lips.
She was so delighted at her escape that she was not wholly responsible for her actions; and if she cried a little, I don't think any one will blame her.
Laughing and crying at the same time, and half wild with excitement, she told her new friend the story of her life for the past few years; and he, in his turn, smiled and wept a little, perhaps, and then he kissed her on the lips, and said,
"Henceforth, my dear girl, you shall be known as the Lady Primrose, and you shall stay with me as long as you will."
Whether or no he ever wrote a poem about her I can not tell. All I know is that she lived with him for the rest of her life, and was the sweetest and happiest Lady Primrose imaginable.
The house was as full of flowers as it could hold, and when the wise old woman of Hollowbush, who, you may be sure, had not forgotten her, asked her if she did not want another diamond necklace, Lady Primrose would answer: