I advanced on tip-toe, removed gently her knitting apparatus, stockings, and all, and placed on her lap some ortolans that I had caught and strangled; but I first plucked one of them, and scattered the feathers all about, and then retreated into a thicket to watch the _denouement_ of my scheme.

She awoke, put down her hand to take up a stocking, and laid hold of a bird.

She stared, rubbed her eyes, stared again, looked about, and could find nothing but the ortolan feathers.

I then ran forward and embraced her, looking as if I had just come from unearthing turnips.

'Well, I declare,' she said with a bewildered air, 'I could have sworn that I was knitting just now, and here I find myself plucking ortolans; and what is more, I have not the slightest idea where, in all the world, the birds have come from!' Of course, I looked as innocent as possible; so that the more she stared and reflected, the less she could make the matter out.
At last, she went on plucking the birds, and when this was done she stuck them on the spit.