Do you think the miller was angry? Not a bit of it! He smiled back
into the laughing face and let her pull his whiskers as much as she
liked. For his whole heart had gone out to this little waif that he
rescued from the river, and at last the solitary man had found
something to love.
The baby slept that night in the miller's own bed, snugly tucked in
beside the miller himself; and in the morning he fed her milk again,
and then went out to work singing more merrily than ever.
Every few minutes he would put his head into the room where he had
left the child, to see if it wanted anything, and if it cried even the
least bit he would run in and take it in his arms and soothe the
little girl until she smiled again.
That first day the miller was fearful some one would come and claim
the child, but when evening came without the arrival of any stranger
he decided the baby had been cast adrift and now belonged to nobody
but him.
"I shall keep her as long as I live," he thought, "and never will we
be separated for even a day. For now that I have found some one to
love I could not bear to let her go again."
He cared for the waif very tenderly; and as the child was strong and
healthy she was not much trouble to him, and to his delight grew
bigger day by day.
The country people were filled with surprise when they saw a child in
the mill-house, and wondered where it came from; but the miller would
answer no questions, and as year after year passed away they forgot to
enquire how the child came there and looked upon her as the miller's
own daughter.
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