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 realised immediately she awoke from her charmed sleep, exactly what had happened. She remembered the words of the fairy godmother, and she knew that what she had foretold had come to pass, and that the sleep from which she and everybody else in the castle had just awakened had lasted a hundred years.

Her first thought was of her daughter, the Princess Briar-Rose. Where was she, and what had happened to her? If she, too, had merely fallen asleep, all was well, but suppose the doom first spoken by the thirteenth fairy had taken effect?

In a few words she told the King all that was in her mind, and without delay messengers were sent all over the castle to look for the Princess.

In the meantime Briar-Rose and the young Prince were talking together in the ruined tower. For the first time she heard the story of the enchantment, and her eyes grew round with wonder as she listened to her lover’s account of the strange things that had happened in the castle. When he told of the great hedge and its cruel thorns, and of the many young men who died in trying to force their way through it, her eyes filled with tears,

“How great their courage was,” she sighed. “Oh, if only I could bring them back to life.”

But the Prince kissed her tears away, and hastened past that part of his tale, and presently she was smiling again and happy, because she understood that everything had happened as it was bound to happen.

Then the Prince took her hand and raised her from the couch on which she had slept so long, and they went down