Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/138

Beauty and the Beast She dreamed that she was walking alongside an endless canal, the banks of which were bordered with tall orange-trees and myrtles in flower. There, as she wandered disconsolately lamenting her fate, of a sudden a young Prince stood before her. He was handsome as the God of Love in picture-books, and when he spoke it was with a voice that went straight to her heart. 'Dear Beauty,' he said, 'you are not so unfortunate as you suppose. It is here you shall find the reward of your goodness, denied to you elsewhere. Use your wits to find me out under the disguise which hides me—that is, if as I stand here now you find me not altogether contemptible. For I love you tenderly—you alone—and in making me happy you can attain to your own happiness. Beloved, never distrust your own true heart, and it shall lead you where the heart has nothing left to desire!' So saying, the charming apparition knelt at her feet, and again besought her to accept his devotion and become mistress over all his life.

'Ah! What can I do to make you happy?' she asked earnestly.

'Only be grateful,' he answered, 'and do not 98