You've given me the baby--and the baby shall love you too."

"Perhaps it will," said the witch, "and when the sorrow comes, send for
me. Each of your fifty kisses will be a spell to bring me to you. Now,
drink up your medicine, there's a dear, and run along home."

So the Queen drank the stuff in the pot, which was quite cool by this
time, and she went out under the fringe of snakes, and they all behaved
like good Sunday-school children. Some of them even tried to drop a
curtsy to her as she went by, though that is not easy when you are
hanging wrong way up by your tail. But the snakes knew the Queen was
friends with their mistress; so, of course, they had to do their best to
be civil.

When the Queen got home, sure enough there was the baby lying in the
cradle with the Royal arms blazoned on it, crying as naturally as
possible. It had pink ribbons to tie up its sleeves, so the Queen saw at
once it was a girl. When the King knew this he tore his black hair with
fury.

"Oh, you silly, silly Queen!" he said. "Why didn't I marry a clever
lady? Did you think I went to all the trouble and expense of sending you
to a witch to get a girl? You knew well enough it was a boy I wanted--a
boy, an heir, a Prince--to learn all my magic and my enchantments, and
to rule the kingdom after me. I'll bet a crown--my crown," he said, "you
never even thought to tell the witch what kind you wanted! Did you now?"

And the Queen hung her head and had to confess that she had only asked
for a child.

"Very well, madam," said the King, "very well--have your own way. And
make the most of your daughter, while she is a child."

The Queen did. All the years of her life had never held half so much
happiness as now lived in each of the moments when she held her little
baby in her arms. And the years went on, and the King grew more and more
clever at magic, and more and more disagreeable at home, and the
Princess grew more beautiful and more dear every day she lived.

The Queen and the Princess were feeding the goldfish in the courtyard
fountains with crumbs of the Princess's eighteenth birthday cake, when
the King came into the courtyard, looking as black as thunder, with his
black raven hopping after him. He shook his fist at his family, as
indeed he generally did whenever he met them, for he was not a King with
pretty home manners. The raven sat down on the edge of the marble basin
and tried to peck the goldfish. It was all he could do to show