The day broke clear and mild, a beautiful morning in June, and lighted up the narrow room in the street of the Abessess where little François, the child of Jacques and Madeleine Legrand, lay dying. He was seven years old and was very fair, very rosy, and so lively. Not three weeks ago he was gay as a sparrow; but a fever had seized him and they had brought him home one evening from the public school with his head heavy and his hands very hot. From that time he had been here in this bed and sometimes in his delirium when he looked at his little well-blackened shoes, which his mother had carefully placed in a corner on a board, he said: “You can throw them away now, little François’ shoes! Little François will not put them on any more! Little François will not go to school any more--never, never!” Then the father cried out and said: “Wilt thou be still!” And the mother, very pale, buried her blond head in his pillow so that little François could not hear her weep. This night the child had not been delirious; but for the two days past the doctor had been uneasy over an odd sort of prostration which resembled abandon, it was as if at seven years the sick one already felt the weariness of life. He was tired, silent, sad, and tossed his little head about on the bolster. He had no longer a smile on his poor, thin lips, and with haggard eyes he sought, seeing they knew not what, something there beyond, very far off-- In Heaven! Perhaps! thought Madeleine, trembling. When they wished him to take some medicine, some sirup, or a little soup, he refused. He refused everything. “Dost thou wish anything, François?” “No, I wish nothing!” “We must draw him out of this,” the doctor said. “This torpor frightens me!--you are the father and the mother, you know your child well--Seek for something to reanimate this little body, recall to earth this spirit which runs after the clouds!” Then he went away. “Seek!” Yes, without doubt they knew him well, their François, these worthy people! They knew how it amused him, the little one, to plunder the hedges on Sunday and to come back to Paris on his father’s shoulders laden with hawthorne--Jacques Legrand had bought some images, some gilded soldiers, and some Chinese shadows for François; he cut them out, put them on the child’s bed and made them dance before the bewildered eyes of the little one, and with a desire to weep himself he tried to make him laugh. “Dost thou see, it is the broken bridge--Tire tire tire!--And that is a general!--Thou rememberest we saw one, a general, once, in the Bois de Boulogne?--If thou takest thy medicine well I will buy thee a real one with a cloth tunic and gold epaulets--Dost thou wish for him, the general, say?” “No,” replied the child, with the dry voice which fever gives. “Dost thou wish a pistol, some marbles--a crossbow?” “No,” repeated the little voice, clearly and almost cruelly.