“Grandmother, tell me the story of the blue bird.”
And grandmother tells her story of the blue bird, how a wicked fairy changed a beautiful young prince into a bird the color of the deep sky, and of the great sorrow the princess felt when she saw the change and beheld her lover flying all ruddy and dripping toward the window of the tower in which she was shut up.
Fanny is very thoughtful when she hears this story.
“Was it a long, long time ago, Grandmother, that the blue bird flew toward the tower where the princess was shut up?”
Grandmother replies that it was all a good while ago, those things, in the days when animals could talk.
“Were you young then?” asks Fanny. “I wasn’t born yet,” says Grandmother. And Fanny says to her: “I suppose a great many things happened before you were born, didn’t they, Grandmother?”
When they are through with their little talk Grandmother gives Fanny an apple and some bread.
“Now run away, pet, and eat this in the yard.”
And Fanny goes out into the yard, where there are trees and grass and flowers and little birds.