[Illustration: 171] WHEN night fell, her grandmother took the basket in which Fanchon had brought her a cake, filled it with apples and grapes, hung it on the child’s arm, and said: “Now, Fanchon, go straight back home, without stopping to play with the village ragamuffins. Be a good girl always. Goodbye.” Then she kissed her. But Fanchon stood thinking at the door. “Grandmother?” she said. “What is it, little Fanchon?” “I should like to know,” said Fanchon, “if there are any beautiful Princes among the birds that ate up my bread.” “Now that there are no more fairies,” her grandmother told her, “the birds are all birds and nothing else.” “Good-bye, grandmother.” “Good-bye, Fanchon.” And Fanchon set off across the meadows for her home, the chimneys of which she could see smoking a long way off against the red sky of sunset. On the road she met Antoine, the gardener’s little boy. He asked her: “Will you come and play with me, Fanchon?” But she answered: “I won’t stop to play with you, because my grandmother told me not to. But I will give you an apple, because I love you very much.” Antoine took the apple and kissed the little girl. They loved each other fondly. He called her his little wife, and she called him her little husband. As she went on her way, stepping soberly along like a staid, grown-up person, she heard behind her a merry twittering of birds, and turning round to look, she saw they were the same little pensioners she had fed when they were hungry. They came flying after her. “Good night, little friends,” she called to them, “good night! It’s bedtime now, so good night!” And the winged songsters answered her with little cries that mean “God keep you!” in bird language. So Fanchon came back to her mother’s to the sound of sweet music in the air. IV [Illustration: 174]