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Updated: June 15, 2025
Then she dropped an humble curtesy; and her mother rose and curtesied also, though she had not recognized her guest as soon as Margary. The poor little stranger fairly wept for joy. "Ah, you remember me," he said betwixt smiles and tears. Then he entered the cottage, and while Margary and her mother got some refreshment ready for him, he told his pitiful story.
They were flying along, their cheeks very rosy and their eyes shining. "O, Margary," they cried, "come up to the tavern, quick, and see! The most beautiful coach-and-four is drawn up there. There are lackeys in green and gold, with cocked hats, and the coach hath a crest on the side O, Margary!" Margary's eyes grew large too, and she turned about with her empty pitcher and followed her friends.
Then Margary and her mother set a bottle of cowslip wine on the table, slices of wheaten bread, and a plate of honeycomb, a bowl of ripe raspberries, and a little jug of yellow cream, and another little bowl with a garland of roses around the rim, for the porridge. Just as soon as that was cooked, the stranger sat down, and ate a supper fit for a prince.
Margary descended from his chair and delivered a short address: "Why do you crowd round me in this rude manner? Is this your courtesy to strangers? I have often heard it said that China was of all things distinguished for civility and courtesy. But am I to take this as a specimen of it? Shall I go back and tell my countrymen that your boasted civility only amounts to rudeness?"
An ominous silence followed, and Colonel Browne's party delayed its advance until some definite news should arrive as to what had occurred in front, although the silence was sufficient to justify the worst apprehensions. Three days later the rumor spread that Mr. Margary and his attendants had been murdered.
Every one who had seen him, had some new and more marvelous item; till charming as the child really was, he became, in the popular estimation, a real fairy prince. When Margary and the other children went to school, with their horn-books hanging at their sides, they found the schoolmaster greatly excited over it.
Margary, the British Consul, who met a cruel death at Manwyne, passed through Yunnan in 1875 on his famous journey from Hankow; and two years later the tardy mission under Grosvenor, with the brilliant Baber as interpreter, and Li Han Chang, the brother of Li Hung Chang, as delegate for the Chinese, arrived here in the barren hope of bringing his murderers to justice.
Inside the cottage, the floor was sanded with the whitest sand; lovely old straight-backed chairs stood about; there was an oaken table, and a spinning-wheel. A wicker cage, with a lark in it, hung in the window. Margary with her pitcher, tripped along to the village well. On the way she met two of her little mates Rosamond and Barbara.
"The memory of a stranger one has fed, is a pleasant one," said her mother. "I am glad the lark sang so beautifully all the while he was eating," said Margary. While they were eating their own supper, the oldest woman in the village came in. She was one hundred and twenty years old, and, by reason of her great age, was considered very wise.
They had flatly refused to believe that this last little stranger was the first one, and had made great fun of Margary and her mother for being so credulous. But they had not minded. They had given their guest a little pallet stuffed with down, and a pillow stuffed with rose-leaves to sleep on, and fed him with the best they had.
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