Page:The Red Fairy Book.djvu/115

Rh So saying they drew from their travelling bag the picture of Rosette.

The King looked at it in silence a long time, but at last he said:

‘I could not have believed that there was such a beautiful Princess in the world!’

‘Indeed, she is really a hundred times as pretty as that,’ said her brothers.

‘I think you must be making fun of me,’ replied the King of the Peacocks.

‘Sire,’ said the Prince, ‘my brother is a King, like yourself. He is called “the King,” I am called “the Prince,” and that is the portrait of our sister, the Princess Rosette. We have come to ask if you would like to marry her. She is as good as she is beautiful, and we will give her a bushel of gold pieces for her dowry.’

‘Oh! with all my heart,’ replied the King, ‘and I will make her very happy. She shall have whatever she likes, and I shall love her dearly; only I warn you that if she is not as pretty as you have told me, I will have your heads cut off.’

‘Oh! certainly, we quite agree to that,’ said the brothers in one breath.

‘Very well. Off with you into prison, and stay there until the Princess arrives,’ said the King of the Peacocks.

And the Princes were so sure that Rosette was far prettier than her portrait that they went without a murmur. They were very kindly treated, and that they might not feel dull the King came often to see them. As for Rosette’s portrait that was taken up to the palace, and the King did nothing but gaze at it all day and all night.

As the King and the Prince had to stay in prison, they sent a letter to the Princess telling her to pack up all her treasures as quickly as possible, and come to them, as the King of the Peacocks was waiting to marry her; but they did not say that they were in prison, for fear of making her uneasy.

When Rosette received the letter she was so delighted that she ran about telling everyone that the King of the Peacocks was found, and she was going to marry him.

Guns were fired, and fireworks let off. Everyone had as many cakes and sweetmeats as he wanted. And for three days everybody who came to see the Princess was presented with a slice of bread-and-jam, a nightingale’s egg, and some hippocras. After having thus entertained her friends, she distributed her dolls among them,