Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/146

Beauty and the Beast sight of all—an aviary full of the rarest birds, yet all so tame that they flew to Beauty, and perched themselves on her shoulders.

'Dear birds,' she said, 'I wish you were closer to my own room, that I might sit and hear you singing.'

She had scarcely said it when, opening a door beyond the aviary, she found herself in her own chamber–yes, her very own!—which she had thought to be quite on the other side of the building. The door, when she came to examine it, had a shutter which could be opened to hear, and closed again when she grew tired of it. This aviary opened on another inhabited by parrots, parroquets, and cockatoos. These no sooner saw Beauty than they began to scream and chatter; one wishing her 'Good morning,' another inviting her to luncheon, while a third yet more gallant cried 'Kiss me! Kiss me!' Others again whistled airs from grand opera or declaimed pieces of poetry by the best authors. It was plain that in their several ways they all had the same object—to amuse her.

Beyond the aviaries lay a monkey house. Here 106