I am too ugly and too old; but, for all that, I have no less power than they—and, without boasting of it, I may perhaps have more." All the fairies pressed her so much to sit down to table, that at length she consented. A golden basket was placed before them, containing twelve bouquets composed of jewels. The fairies who had arrived first, each took her bouquet; so that there was not one left for Magotine, who began to mutter between her teeth. The Queen ran to her cabinet, and brought her a casket of perfumed Spanish morocco, covered with rubies and filled with diamonds, praying her acceptance of it; but Magotine shook her head, and said to her, "Keep your jewels, Madam; I have enough and to spare. I only came to see if you had thought of me. You have neglected me shamefully." Thereupon she struck the table with her wand, and all the dainties with which it was loaded turned into fricaseed serpents; at which the fairies were all so horrified, that they flung down their napkins, and left the table.
Whilst they were talking together respecting the sad trick Magotine had played them, that cruel little Fairy approached the cradle in which the Princesses were lying wrapped in their swaddling clothes of cloth of gold, and looking the loveliest children in the world. "I endow thee," said she rapidly to one of them, "with perfect ugliness." She was about to utter some malediction on the other, when the fairies, in great agitation, ran and stopped her; on which the mischievous Magotine broke one of the window-panes, and, darting through it like a flash of lightning, vanished from their sight.
All the good gifts which the benevolent fairies could bestow on the Princess were insufficient to alleviate the wretchedness of the Queen, at finding herself the mother of the ugliest being in the universe. She took the infant in her arms, and had the misery to see it grow more hideous every instant. She struggled in vain to suppress her tears in presence of their fairy ladyships; she could not prevent their flowing, and it is impossible to imagine the compassion they felt for her. "What shall we do, sisters?" said they to each other; "what shall we do to console the Queen?" They held a grand council on the subject, and, on its conclusion, told the Queen not to give way so much to grief, as there was
