nces
it will escape from you and you will never recover it."

Henry was about to thank him but the little man had disappeared in the
midst of his medicinal herbs, and he found himself alone.

"What shall I do now in order to arrive quickly at home? If I encounter
on my return the same obstacles which met me as I came up the mountain,
I shall perhaps lose my plant, my dear plant, which should restore my
dear mother to life."

Happily Henry now remembered the stick which the Wolf had given him.

"Well, let us see," said he, "if this stick has really the power to
carry me home."

Saying this, he mounted the stick and wished himself at home. In the
same moment he felt himself raised in the air, through which he passed
with the rapidity of lightning and found himself almost instantly by his
mother's bed.

Henry sprang to his mother and embraced her tenderly. But she neither
saw nor heard him. He lost no time, but pressed the plant of life upon
her lips. At the same moment she opened her eyes, threw her arms around
Henry's neck and exclaimed:

"My child! my dear Henry! I have been very sick but now I feel almost
well. I am hungry."

Then, looking at him in amazement, she said: "How you have grown, my
darling! How is this? How can you have changed so in a few days?"

Henry had indeed grown a head taller. Two years, seven months and six
days had passed away since he left his home. He was now nearly ten years
old. Before he had time to answer, the window opened and the good fairy
Bienfaisante appeared. She embraced Henry and, approaching the couch of
his mother, related to her all that little Henry had done and suffered,
the dangers he had dared, the fatigues he endured; the courage, the
patience, the goodness he had manifested. Henry blushed on hearing
himself thus praised by the fairy. His mother pressed him to her heart,
and covered him with kisses. After the first moments of happiness and
emotion had passed away, the fairy said:

"Now, Henry, you can make use of the present of the little Old Man and
the Giant of the mountain."

Henry drew out his little box and opened it. Immediately there issued
from it a crowd of little workmen, not larger than bees, who filled the
room. They began to work with such promptitude that in a quarter of an
hour they had built and furnished a beautiful house in the midst of a
lovely garden with a thick wood on one side and a beautiful meadow on
the other.

"All this is yours, my