"But we have been away a year," said Pierot, passing his hand before his eyes as if trying to clear his ideas.
"A year! Prithee! And the sheets which I hung out at noon not fairly dry yet. A year! And the goats thou drovest to pasture before breakfast not in the shed yet! A year! Thou wouldst better not let the father hear thee prate thus! What, crying, Pierotte! Here's a pretty to-do because, forsooth, you are come in an hour late!"
An hour late! The children looked at each other in speechless amazement. To this day the amazement continues. The mother still persists that they were absent but a few hours. Where, then, were the weeks spent in the wood, the gray hair, the wrinkles, the wanderings in search of the old woman and her hut? Was all and each but a bit of enchantment, a trick of the mirth-loving fairies? They could not tell, and neither can I. Fairies are unaccountable folk, and their doings surpass our guessing, who are but mortal, and stupid at that! One thing I know, that the two children since that day have dropped their foolish habit of wishing, and are well content to remain little Pierot and Pierotte till the time comes for them to grow older, as it will only too soon.
BLUE AND PINK.
WO valentines lay together in the pillar post-box. One was pink and one was blue. Pink lay a-top, and they crackled to each other softly in the paper-language, invented long since by Papyrus, the father of Manuscript, and used by all written and printed sheets unto this day. Listen hard, next time you visit the reading-room at the Public Library, and you will hear the newspapers exchanging remarks across the table in this language.
Said the pink valentine: "I am prettier than you, much prettier, Miss Blue."
Blue was modester. "That may be true, my dear Miss Pink; still, some folks like blue best, I think," she replied.