And with that off they went! The children felt themselves floating along lightly and easily, through the trees; while all the birds flew fluttering beside them, singing and warbling their sweetest songs. Then suddenly up they soared into the air. Higher and higher they mounted like birds, skimming above the tops of the trees. Frederic shouted with delight, but Fanchon was frightened.
“Oh, my breath is going! I shall tumble!” she cried.
And just at that moment the Stranger Child let them down gently to the ground, and said: “Now I shall sound my Forest-Song. Then good-bye for to-day.”
And the Stranger Child took out a little horn of wreathed gold, and began to sound it so beautifully that the whole wood reëchoed wondrously with its lovely music; while a host of nightingales came flocking to the branches above the children’s heads, and sang their most melodious songs.
But all at once the music grew fainter and fainter, and only a soft whispering seemed to come from the thicket into which the Stranger Child had vanished.
“To-morrow! To-morrow! I will come again!” the children heard breathed gently as if from a distance. Then they sighed with joy, for, though they could not understand it, never had they known such happiness in all their lives.
“Oh! I wish it was to-morrow, now!” they both cried, as they hastened home to their parents.
HOW THE FOREST TALKED TO FANCHON AND FREDERIC
“I should fancy that the children had dreamed all this,” said the Count to his wife, when Fanchon and Frederic, who could think of nothing else but the Stranger Child, and the wonderful events, and the exquisite music, had told all that had happened. “I should fancy that they had dreamed all this, if they had not both seen the same things! I cannot get to the bottom of it all!”
“Don’t bother your head about it, my dear,” answered his wife. “I think this Stranger Child was nobody but the schoolmaster’s son from the village. We must take care that he is not allowed to put any more such nonsense into the children’s heads.”