ar grandmother who smiled with her toothless
mouth and opened her old arms thin as grape vines to welcome her little
granddaughter. Fanny's heart was filled with delight at the prospect of
spending a whole day at her grandmother's. And her grandmother, having
no longer any cares or tasks, but living like a cricket near the fire,
is happy too to see the little daughter of her son, a sweet reminder of
her youth.

They have many things to say to each other, for one of them is at the
end of life's voyage and the other is just setting out upon it.

"You grow bigger every day, Fanny," says her grandmother, "and I am
getting littler. Just look! I need hardly stoop to press my lips to your
forehead. What difference does it make how old I am when I still have
youth's roses in your cheeks, Little Fanny."

[Illustration]

But Fanny is exploring for the hundredth time, with new joy, all the
curious things in the little house--the paper flowers blooming beneath
the glass globe, the old paintings of French generals in fine uniforms
overthrowing their enemies, the gold cups, some with handles and some
without, and grandfather's old gun which hangs on the chimney breast on
a nail from which grandfather himself fastened it--for the last time,
thirty years ago.

[Illustration: TREES AND GRASS AND FLOWERS AND LITTLE BIRDS THERE WERE
IN GRANDMOTHER'S YARD. FANNY DID NOT BELIEVE THERE WAS A PRETTIER YARD
THAN THIS IN ALL THE WORLD. SHE TAKES HER KNIFE FROM HER POCKET
PROMPTLY, AND CUTS HER BREAD AS THE VILLAGE PEOPLE DO.

_Printed in France_]

But the hours pass and the first thing one knows it's time to get
ready for the noonday dinner. Grandmother stirs up the wood fire that
has been slumbering quietly, and then she breaks some eggs in the black
tiled hearth, while Fanny watches with great interest the omelette and
bacon that turns gold and sings in the flame. Grandmother knows better
than any one how to make ham omelettes and tell stories. Fanny, seated
on the little stove, her cheek no higher than the table, eats the
steaming omelette and drinks sparkling cider. Grandmother, however, as
her habit is, eats standing near the corner of the hearth. She holds her
knife in her right hand, and in the other her snack spread on a crust of
bread. When they have finished, both of them, Fanny says:

"Grandmother, tell me the story of the blue bird."

And grandmother tells her story of the blue bird, how a wicked fairy
changed a beautiful