Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/126

Beauty and the Beast from the pommel and hand it to Beauty, saying: 'Here is what you asked me to bring. You little know what it will cost you all.'

This, and his sorrowful look, gave the eldest daughter her cue. 'I was certain of it!' she said. 'Did I not say, all along, that to force a rose at this time of the year would cost you more than would have bought presents for all the rest of us? A rose, in mid-winter! and such a rose! There—one has only to look at it to see that you took good care Beauty should have her present, no matter at what cost to us!'

'It is all too true,' answered their father sorrowfully, that this rose has cost me dear—far dearer than all the presents you others begged of me. But the cost is not in money; for would to God I could have bought it with the last penny in my purse!'

His speech, you may be sure, excited their curiosity, and they gave him no rest until he had told the whole of his story. It left their hopes utterly dashed: and the daughters lamented their lot, while their brothers hardily declared that they would never allow their father to return to this 88