Page:The sleeping beauty and other fairy tales from the old French (1910).djvu/58

Blue Beard never dared to come while her husband was at home, because of his terrifying blue beard. They overran the house without loss of time, hunting their curiosity from room to room, along the corridors and in and out of closets and wardrobes, cabinets and presses; opening cupboards, ferreting in drawers, and still exclaiming over their contents as each new discovery proved more wonderful than the last. They roamed through the bedrooms and spent a long while in the two great store-chambers, where they could not sufficiently admire the number and beauty of the tapestries, beds, sofas, consoles, stands, tables, but particularly the looking-glasses, in which you could see yourself from head to foot, with their frames of glass and silver and silver-gilt, the finest and costliest ever seen. They ceased not to extol and to envy their friend's good fortune.

'If my husband could only give me such a house as this,' said one to another, 'for aught I cared he might have a beard of all the colours of the rainbow!'

Fatima meanwhile, was not in the least amused by the sight of all these riches, being consumed by a curiosity even more ardent than that of her

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