The Maid of Sker by R.D. Blackmore

If that child had no luck herself (except, of course, in meeting me), at any rate she never failed to bring me wondrous fortune. The air was smooth, and sweet, and soft, the sky had not a wrinkle, and the fickle sea was smiling, proud of pleasant manners. Directly I began to fish at the western tail of the Tuskar, scarcely a fish forebore me. Whiting-pollacks run in shoals, and a shoal I had of them; and the way I split and dried them made us long for breakfast-time. And Bardie did enjoy them so.

The more I dwelled with that little child, the more I grew wrapped up in her. Her nature was so odd and loving, and her ways so pretty. Many men forego their goodness, so that they forget the nature of a little darling child. Otherwise, perhaps, we might not, if we kept our hearts aright, so despise the days of loving, and the time of holiness. Now this baby almost shamed me, and I might say Bunny too, when, having undressed her, and put the coarse rough nightgown on her, which came from Sker with the funerals, my grandchild called me from upstairs, to meet some great emergency.