constructed in the tree. At length she perceived it, and opened it: it opened on a field of nettles and thistles surrounded by a muddy ditch. At a little distance stood a very low-roofed cottage, thatched with straw,—the Yellow Dwarf came out of it with a mirthful air. He wore wooden shoes, and a jacket of coarse yellow cloth; had large ears, and no hair, and looked like a thorough little villain. "I am delighted, my Lady Mother-in-law," said he, "to show you the little château in which your Toutebelle will reside with me. She may keep an ass upon these nettles and thistles to ride about on. This rustic roof will shelter her from the inclemency of the weather; she will drink this water and eat some of the frogs that fatten in it; and she will have me day and night beside her, handsome, gay, and gallant, as you see me, for I should be very sorry if her shadow followed her closer than I."
The unfortunate Queen, suddenly struck by the wretched life the Dwarf had allotted to her dear daughter, and being unable to support so terrible a picture, dropped insensible to the ground without being able to utter a word in reply to him: but while she was in this state she was transported to the Palace, placed in her own bed, very neatly, with the finest night-caps and the handsomest fontange[1] that she had ever worn in her life. The Queen awoke and recollected what had befallen her. She wouldn't believe it was true; for finding herself in her Palace, amidst her ladies, and her daughter by her side, there was little to show that she had been in the Desert, that she had encountered such great dangers, and that the Dwarf had saved and preserved her from them on so hard a condition as the gift to him of Toutebelle. Nevertheless, the rare lace of the cap, and the beauty of the riband, astonished her as much as the dream she presumed she had had, and in the excess of her anxiety she fell into a melancholy, so extraordinary, that she could scarcely speak, eat, or sleep. The Princess, who loved her mother with all her heart, was very uneasy about her. She implored her frequently to say what was the matter with her: but the Queen, seeking for pretexts, answered sometimes that she was out of health, and at others that one of the neighbouring States threatened to go to war with her.
- ↑ See note, p. 122.
