"Is it not a pretty story, Louis?" Of a sudden the filmy dreaminess of her eyes had lifted, and their dark-brown depths sparkled with life. "I am so glad at the convent they made me learn to read. But it is dreadfully difficult, my friend—there are such big words, you see. Well, Louis, this little girl went one day for a walk to the top of a hill—but you shall hear exactly how it is."
She carefully found the place in the book, and, with a finger following each line in case she should miss any of it, proceeded to read in that ecstatic and unreal style of voice inevitable to young people when uttering other thoughts than their own.
"'… Reaching the top of the hill, the most beautiful little girl in the world, whose eyes were brighter than stars, and whose lips were redder than the heart of a rose' (like me, Louis—yes?) 'sat down on a fallen tree and started to sing a song which she had learned from a solitary shepherd near her home.'—It does not say, Louis, but I think, perhaps, the music goes like this:
"'Maman, dites moi ce qu'on sent quand on aime.
Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?
Je suis tout le jour dans une peine extrême,
Et la nuit, je ne sais comment.
Si quelqu'un près….
"'And just then she saw a handsome cavalier approaching on foot.' (Is it not exciting, Louis?) 'He was tall and young, and was the bravest soldier in all France. He was so brave and handsome that every one called him "The Fairy Prince"'—Listen, Louis, to the wind."
The lowering clouds threw black shadows over the fields; the hurrying water of the mill-stream turned the color of ink as it made, shudderingly, for the fall of the chute. Through the ominous rise and fall of the October wind came the sound of an aeroplane in the clouds, to be lost a moment later in a boisterous rush of wind that swept the girl's tresses.