“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.