"You must give him some breakfast," said Sylvie, and she went peeping into cupboards and pantry, finding milk, brown bread and sugar which she hastily set upon the table, together with the plates and dishes of crockery adorned with staring flowers and birds of brilliant plumage. A large bowl of Creil china, filled with strawberries swimming in milk, formed the centrepiece, and after she had raided the garden for cherries and goose-berries, she arranged two vases of flowers, placing one at each end of the white cloth. Just then, her aunt made a sensible speech: "All this is only for dessert. Now, you must let me set to work." She took down the frying-pan and threw a fagot upon the hearth. "No, no; I shall not let you touch it," she said decidedly to Sylvie, who was trying to help her. "Spoiling your pretty fingers that make finer lace than Chantilly! You gave me some, and I know what lace is." "Oh, yes, aunt, and if you have some left, I can use it for a pattern." "Well, go look upstairs; there may be some in my chest of drawers." "Give me the keys," returned Sylvie. "Nonsense," cried her aunt; "the drawers are open." "No; there is one always locked." While the good woman was cleaning the frying-pan, after having passed it over the fire to warm it, Sylvie unfastened from her belt a little key of wrought steel and showed it to me in triumph. I followed her swiftly up the wooden staircase that led to the room above. Oh youth, and holy age! Who could sully by an evil thought the purity of first love in this shrine of hallowed memories? The portrait of a young man of the good old times, with laughing black eyes and rosy lips, hung in an oval gilt frame at the head of the rustic bed. He wore the uniform of a gamekeeper of the house of Condé; his somewhat martial bearing, ruddy, good-humoured face, and powdered hair drawn back from the clear brow, gave the charm of youth and simplicity to this pastel, destitute, perhaps, of any artistic merit Some obscure artist, bidden to the hunting parties of the prince, had done his best to portray the keeper and his bride who appeared in another medallion, arch and winning, in her open bodice laced with ribbons, teasing with piquant frown, a bird perched upon her finger. It was, however, the same good old dame, at that moment bending over the hearth-fire to cook. It reminded me of the fairies in a spectacle who hide under wrinkled masks, their real beauty revealed in the closing scene when the Temple of Love appears with its whirling sun darting magic fires. "Oh, dear old aunt!" I exclaimed, "how pretty you were!" "And I?" asked Sylvie, who had succeeded in opening the famous drawer which contained an old-fashioned dress of taffeta, so stiff that the heavy folds creaked under her touch. "I will see if it fits me," she said; "I shall look like an old fairy!" "Like the fairy of the legends, ever young," thought I.