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consoled these words, and earnestly entreated her to have pity on a poor unhappy princess, who had ⟨once⟩ enjoyed the greatest favours of fortune; instead of which, she could now ⟨boast⟩ of nothing but suffering the greatest misery.
They were thus talking together, when the wicked king, growing impatient, "Come, come," said he, "let us not have so many compliments; I brought you here to inform me whether the queen will have a daughter or son?" "She is pregnant of a daughter," replied the fairy, "who will be the most beautiful and most accomplished princess that has ever been seen, and the queen will wish to see her placed in the highest possible situation of rank and honour." "If she is not very beautiful and accomplished," said the king, "I will hang her mother to a tree, with the child at her neck, and nothing shall prevent it." Having said this, he left the place with the fairy, and took no notice of the unfortunate queen, who wept bitterly,---thus lamenting her unhappy fate: "Alas! what shall I do? If I have a beautiful little girl, he will give her to his reptile of a son; and if she is ugly, he will hang us both. To what an extremity am I reduced! Cannot I conceal it from him somewhere, so that he can never see it?"
The time approached when the little
