aw a peasant woman approach who
carried a basket of fruit.

"Cherries!" cried George. "How unlucky: I have no money to buy any."

"I have money," said Honey-Bee.

She pulled out of her pocket a little purse in which were five pieces of
gold.

"Good woman," she said to the peasant, "will you give me as many
cherries as my frock will hold?"

And she raised her little skirt with her two hands. The woman threw
in two or three handfuls of cherries. With one hand Honey-Bee held the
uplifted skirt and with the other she offered the woman a gold piece.

"Is that enough?"

The woman clutched the gold piece which would amply have paid not only
for the cherries in the basket but for the tree on which they grew and
the plot of land on which the tree stood.

The artful one replied:

"I'm satisfied, if only to oblige you, little princess."

"Well then, put some more cherries in my brother's cap," said Honey-Bee,
"and you shall have another gold piece."

This was done. The peasant woman went on her way meditating in what old
stocking or under what mattress she should hide her two gold pieces.

And the two children followed the road eating the cherries and throwing
the stones to the right and the left. George chose the cherries that
hung two by two on one stem and made earrings for his little sister,
and he laughed to see the lovely twin fruit dangle its vermillion beauty
against her cheeks.

A pebble stopped their joyous progress. It had got into Honey-Bee's
little shoe and she began to limp. At every step she took, her golden
curls bobbed against her cheek, and so limping she sat down on a bank
by the roadside. Her brother knelt down and took off the satin shoe. He
shook it and out dropped a little white pebble.

"Little brother," she said as she looked at her feet, "the next time we
go to the lake we'll put on boots."

The sun was already sinking against the radiant sky; a soft breeze
caressed their cheeks and necks, and so, cheered and refreshed, the two
little travellers proceeded on their way. To make walking easier they
went hand in hand, and they laughed to see their moving shadows melt
together before them. They sang:

Maid Marian, setting forth to find
The mill, with sacks of corn to grind,
Her donkey, Jan, bestrode.
My dainty maiden, Marian,
She mounted on her donkey, Jan,
And took the mill-ward road.*

* Marian' s'en allant au moulin,
Pour y faire moudre s