Page:Nutcracker and Mouse-King (1853).djvu/77

Rh floor. Little Pirlipat awoke at the noise and wept bitterly. "Thank heaven," cried the nurse, "she lives—she lives!" But how great was their terror, when they looked at Pirlipat, and saw what a change had taken place in the sweet beautiful child. Instead of the white and red face with golden locks, a large, ill-shaped head sat upon her thin shrivelled body, her azure blue eyes were changed into green staring ones, and her little mouth had stretched itself from ear to ear. The queen was brought to death's door by grief and sorrow, and it was found necessary to hang the king's library with thick wadded tapestry, for again and again he ran his head against the wall, crying out at every time in lamentable tones, "Ah, me, unhappy monarch!" He might now have seen how much better it would have been to eat his sausages without fat, and to leave Lady Mouserings and her family at peace under the hearth; but Pirlipat's royal father did not think about