Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/53

Blue Beard the waters of their host's private canal, they picnicked in the ruined castles, of which he owned quite a number. Each day concluded, too, with banqueting, dancing, card-parties, theatricals; or would have concluded, had these young people felt any disposition to go to bed. They preferred, however, to sit up until morning, joking and teasing one another. Blue Beard, who had arrived at middle age, would have been grateful for a little more sleep than they allowed him, but showed himself highly complaisant and smiled at their pranks even when—their awe of him having worn off—they balanced a basin of water above his chamber door, to fall on his head and douch him, or sewed up his night-garments, or stuffed his bolster with the prickly cactus (an Eastern vegetable, of which he possessed whole avenues); nay, even when, for the same mischievous purpose, they despoiled his garden of an aloe which was due to blossom in a few days' time, after having remained flowerless for a century, he betrayed no chagrin but merely raised the wages of his head-gardener, heart-broken over the loss of a plant so economical in giving pleasure. In short all went so smoothly that the younger daughter 29