embroidered in gold and silver.

You would have thought her an angel, so fair was she to behold. The
trance had not taken away the lovely colour of her complexion. Her
cheeks were delicately flushed, her lips like coral. Her eyes, indeed,
were closed, but her gentle breathing could be heard, and it was
therefore plain that she was not dead. The king commanded that she
should be left to sleep in peace until the hour of her awakening should
come.

When the accident happened to the princess, the good fairy who had saved
her life by condemning her to sleep a hundred years was in the kingdom
of Mataquin, twelve thousand leagues away. She was instantly warned of
it, however, by a little dwarf who had a pair of seven-league boots,
which are boots that enable one to cover seven leagues at a single step.
The fairy set off at once, and within an hour her chariot of fire, drawn
by dragons, was seen approaching.

The king handed her down from her chariot, and she approved of all that
he had done. But being gifted with great powers of foresight, she
bethought herself that when the princess came to be awakened, she would
be much distressed to find herself all alone in the old castle. And this
is what she did.

[Illustration: '_A little dwarf who had a pair of seven-league boots_']

She touched with her wand everybody (except the king and queen) who was
in the castle--governesses, maids of honour, ladies-in-waiting,
gentlemen, officers, stewards, cooks, scullions, errand boys, guards,
porters, pages, footmen. She touched likewise all the horses in the
stables, with their grooms, the big mastiffs in the courtyard, and
little Puff, the pet dog of the princess, who was lying on the bed
beside his mistress. The moment she had touched them they all fell
asleep, to awaken only at the same moment as their mistress. Thus they
would always be ready with their service whenever she should require it.
The very spits before the fire, loaded with partridges and pheasants,
subsided into slumber, and the fire as well. All was done in a moment,
for the fairies do not take long over their work.

Then the king and queen kissed their dear child, without waking her, and
left the castle. Proclamations were issued, forbidding any approach to
it, but these warnings were not needed, for within a quarter of an hour
there grew up all round the park so vast a quantity of trees big and
small, with interlacing brambles and thorns, that neither man nor beast