eart from her early studies in the German
picture-books and similar works. But Jeanne-Marie told them
well, and somehow they seemed invested with a new interest for
Madelon, as she half unconsciously contrasted her own
experiences with those of the heroes and heroines, and found
in their adventures some far-fetched parallel to her own. But
then their experiences were so much wider and more varied in
that old charmed, sunny, fairy life; the knot of their
difficulties was so readily cut, by a simple reference to some
Fortunatus' purse, or the arrival in the very nick of time of
some friendly fairy. Madelon did not draw the parallel quite
far enough, or it might have occurred to her that benevolence
did not become wholly extinct with the disappearance of
fairies, and that friendly interference is not quite unknown
even in these more prosaic days. The Fortunatus' purse, it is
true, might awake a sense of comparison, but who could have
looked at Jeanne-Marie's homely features, and have dreamed of
her in connexion with a fairy? In truth, it requires a larger
and deeper experience than any that Madelon could have
acquired, or reasoned out, to recognise how much of the charm
of these tales of our childhood can be traced to the eternal
truths that lie hidden in them, or to perceive that the
shining fairy concealed beneath the frequent guise of some
crabbed old woman, is no mere freak of fancy, but the symbol
of a reality, less exceptional perhaps amongst us poor
mortals, than amongst the fairies themselves, who, finding
their presence no longer needed, vanished from our earth so
many centuries ago.

It was the next morning, that, after the doctor's visit was
over, Jeanne-Marie returned to the bedroom, with the air of
having tidings to impart.

"You will be satisfied now, I hope," she said, as she met the
gaze of the restless brown eyes. "M. le Docteur says you may
get up for an hour this afternoon."

"Does he?" cried Madelon, eagerly; "then he thinks I am
better--that I shall soon be well."

"Of course you are better," said Jeanne-Marie--"you are getting
stronger every day; you will soon be quite well again."

"And how soon shall I be able to go out?--to go on a journey,
for instance?"

"You are, then, very anxious to get away?" asked Jeanne-Marie.

"But yes," said Madelon naively, "I must go as soon as
possible."

"Ah, well," said the woman, stifling a sigh, "that is only
natural; but there is no hurry, you will