"Oh! How glad I am to see you like this, Jeannie," said François. "You are not very tall and strong, but I am satisfied, because I think you will need my help in climbing trees and crossing the river. I see that you are delicate, though you are not ill, isn't it so? Well, you shall be my child, still a little while longer, if you do not mind. Yes, yes; you will find me necessary to you; and you will make me carry out your wishes, just as it was long ago." "Yes," said Jeannie; "my four hundred wishes, as you used to call them." "Oho! What a good memory you have! How nice it was of you, Jeannie, not to forget François! But have we still four hundred wishes a day?" "Oh, no," said Madeleine; "he has grown very reasonable; he has no more than two hundred now." "No more nor less?" asked François. "Just as you like," answered Jeannie; "since my darling mother is beginning to smile again, I am ready to agree to anything. I am even willing to say that I wish more than five hundred times a day to see her well again." "That is right, Jeannie," said François. "See how nicely he talks! Yes, my boy, God will grant those five hundred wishes of yours. We shall take such good care of your darling mother, and shall cheer and gladden her little by little, until she forgets her weariness." Catherine stood at the threshold, and was most anxious to come in, to see and speak to François, but Mariette held her by the sleeve, and would not leave off asking questions. "What," said she, "is he a foundling? He looks so respectable." She was looking through the crack in the door, which she held ajar. "How comes it that he and Madeleine are such friends?" "I tell you that she brought him up, and that he was always a very good boy." "She has never spoken of him to me, nor have you." "Oh, goodness, no! I never thought of it; he was away; and I almost forgot him; then, I knew, too, that my mistress had been in trouble on his account, and I did not wish to recall it to her mind." "Trouble! What kind of trouble?" "Oh! because she was so fond of him; she could not help liking him, he had such a good heart, poor child. Your brother would not allow him in the house, and you know your brother was not always very gentle!" "We must not say that, now that he is dead, Catherine." "Yes, yes; you are right; I was not thinking. Dear me, how short my memory is! And yet it is only two weeks since he died! But let me go in, my young lady; I want to give the boy some dinner, for I think he must be hungry." She shook herself loose, ran up to François, and kissed him. He was so handsome that she no longer remembered having once said that she would rather kiss her sabot than a foundling.