Page:Old time stories (Perrault, Robinson).djvu/207

 Princess Rosette we foretell of the pretty child, and we are grieved that we should have no better news to give you.'

Then the fairies went away, and the queen was left grieving.

So deep was her grief that the king saw it in her face, and asked what ailed her. She had gone too near the fire, she told him, and had burnt all the flax that was on her distaff.

'Is that all?' said the king, and going up to his storeroom he brought her more flax than she could have spun in a hundred years.

But the queen continued sad, and again the king asked what ailed her. She declared that in walking by the river she had let her green satin slipper fall into the water. 'Is that all?' said the king, and summoning all the shoemakers in the kingdom he brought her ten thousand green satin slippers.

Still she grieved, and once more he asked what ailed her. She told him that in eating with rather too vigorous an appetite she had swallowed her wedding-ring, which had been on her finger. The king knew at once that she was not telling the truth, for he had put away this ring himself.

'My dear wife,' he said, 'you lie; I put away your ring in my purse—here it is!'

She was not a little confused at being caught telling a lie (for there is nothing in the world so ugly), and she saw that the king was displeased. She told him, therefore, what the fairies had prophesied of little Rosette, and implored him to say if he could think of any good remedy.

The king was plunged in the deepest melancholy, so