Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/27

Beauty and the Beast upon the little Princess went as soon as she rose from table and hid herself close by the cradle, behind the tapestry, that she might have the last word and undo, so far as she could, what evil the Fairy Uglyane might have in her mind.

She had scarcely concealed herself before the other Fairies began to advance, one by one, to bestow their gifts on the Princess. The youngest promised her that she should be the most beautiful creature in the world; the next, that she should have the wit of an angel; the third, a marvellous grace in all her ways; the fourth, that she should dance to perfection; the fifth, that she should sing like a nightingale; the sixth, that she should play exquisitely on all instruments of music.

Now came the turn of the old Fairy Uglyane. Her head nodded with spite and old age together, as she bent over the cradle and shook her crutched staff above the head of the pretty babe, who slept on sweetly, too young and too innocent as yet to dream of any such thing as mischief in this world.

'This is my gift to you, Princess Aurora,' announced the hag, still in her creaking voice that 5