Page:Lange - The Blue Fairy Book.djvu/276

 had already taken hold of one of them when his wife said to him:

‘What need you do it now? Is it not time enough to-morrow?’

‘Hold your prating,’ said the Ogre; ‘they will eat the tenderer.’

‘But you have so much meat already,’ replied his wife, ‘you have no occasion; here are a calf, two sheep, and half a hog.’

‘That is true,’ said the Ogre; ‘give them their belly full that they may not fall away, and put them to bed.’

The good woman was over-joyed at this, and gave them a good supper; but they were so much afraid they could not eat a bit. As for the Ogre, he sat down again to drink, being highly pleased that he had got wherewithal to treat his friends. He drank a dozen glasses more than ordinary, which got up into his head and obliged him to go to bed.

The Ogre had seven daughters, all little children, and these young ogresses had all of them very fine complexions, because they used to eat fresh meat like their father; but they had little grey eyes, quite round, hooked noses, and very long sharp teeth, standing at a good distance from each other. They were not as yet over and above mischievous, but they promised very fair for it, for they had already bitten little children, that they might suck their blood.

They had been put to bed early, with every one a crown of gold upon her head. There was in the same chamber a bed of the like bigness, and it was into this bed the Ogre’s wife put the seven little boys, after which she went to bed to her husband.

Little Thumb, who had observed that the Ogre’s daughters had crowns of gold upon their heads, and was afraid lest the Ogre should repent his not killing them, got up about midnight, and, taking his brothers’ bonnets and his own, went very softly and put them upon the heads of the seven little ogresses, after having taken off their crowns of gold, which he put upon his own head and his brothers’, that the Ogre might take them for his daughters, and his daughters for the little boys whom he wanted to kill.

All this succeeded according to his desire; for, the Ogre waking about midnight, and sorry that he deferred to do that till morning which he might have done over-night, threw himself hastily out of bed, and, taking his great knife,

‘Let us see,’ said he, ‘how our little rogues do, and not make two jobs of the matter.’

He then went up, groping all the way, into his daughters’