"Yes, yes; let's dance too!" shouted Tyltyl.
And the two Children began to stamp their feet for joy on the stool:
"Oh, what fun!" said Mytyl.
"They're getting the cakes!" cried Tyltyl. "They can touch them!... They're eating, they're eating, they're eating!... Oh, how lovely, how lovely!..."
Mytyl began to count imaginary cakes:
"I have twelve!..."
"And I four times twelve!" said Tyltyl. "But I'll give you some...."
And our little friends, dancing, laughing and shrieking with delight, rejoiced so prettily in the other children's happiness that they forgot their own poverty and want. They were soon to have their reward. Suddenly, there came a loud knocking at the door. The startled Children ceased their romp and dared not move a limb. Then the big wooden latch lifted of itself, with a loud creak; the door opened slowly; and in crept a little old woman, dressed all in green, with a red hood over her head. She was hump-backed and lame and had only one eye; her nose and chin almost touched; and she walked leaning on a stick. She was surely a fairy.
She hobbled up to the Children and asked, in a snuffling voice:
"Have you the grass here that sings or the bird that is blue?"