"Is she then thy young sister, or may it be that she is thy daughter?"
"Neither young sister nor daughter is she," replied the Herd, "and yet in truth she is both sister and daughter."
"Wilt thou tell me how that may be?" asked the Hermit.
"It is shortly told," said the Herd. "Robbers broke into their poor and lonely house by the roadside and slew father and mother and left them dead, but the babe at the breast they had not slain, and this was she."
"Didst thou find her?" asked the Hermit.
"Ay, on a happy day I found her; a feeble little thing bleating like a lambkin forlorn beside its dead dam."
"And thy wife, belike, or thy mother, reared her?"
"Nay," said the Herd, "for my mother was dead, and no wife have I. I reared her myself—my little white gooseling; and she throve and waxed strong of heart and limb, and merry and brown of favour, as thou hast seen."
"Thou must have been thyself scantly a man in those days," said the Hermit.
"Younger than to-day," replied the Herd; "but I was ever big of limb and plentiful of my inches."