"All right," I said. And she gave me some brown bread and a golden apple, so that I need not come home for tea. Perhaps she wanted to get me out of the way, for the sick child's aunt was coming to pay her a visit, and she liked a gossip. The valley was very still. Even the birds seemed to have gone to sleep, and the stream that trickled down from the hill tinkled very softly, as if it had to be careful not to wake the ferns that fringed its banks. As I looked up the glade I saw a lovely little lady coming slowly towards me, and my heart began to thump in the queerest way. She wore a trailing silvery gown, with a deep band of blue at its border. Her shoes were set with tiny diamonds, and her dainty feet moved through the grass as prettily and as softly as the wind does through the corn. She did not see me until she had come quite close, for I stood in the shade of a blossoming bush. As I took off my cap, her fair face flushed deeply, and for a moment I feared she would run away. So I hastened to tell her that I was a Christmas Child, and why I had come to the valley. At this she smiled, and I saw that her eyes were as blue as the depths of the sea. "You are welcome," she said, "though at first I feared you. Such sorrow has come to Fées through mortals that we are wont to fly at man's approach. But a Christmas Child is almost a Fée himself, and I may talk to you. My name is Méllisande." Then she asked me to walk with her through the wood, and I felt quite proud when she took my hand. A cheeky little Elf, who overheard me say that I would go with her anywhere, turned a somersault in the air and burst out laughing, but I pretended not to hear. It wasn't his business, anyhow, and I wished that that walk through the valley had been twice as long. At the further end, quite hidden among the larches, was a natural grotto of moss-grown stones, and just inside it a heap of ferns, piled up to make a throne that was fit for a queen. Méllisande seated herself on this, and I sat down at her feet. We did not talk for a long while, for she seemed to be thinking as she stroked my hair, and I only wanted to look at her. After awhile I asked her if she had been one of the Fées that Madame Daudet's great-great-grandmother had met in a forest near Bayeux. She smiled and sighed as she told me "Yes," and a wood dove flew out of the trees and perched on her shoulder. [Illustration] [Illustration] Chapter VI The Seven Fair Queens of Pirou.