in
with his wand, and it untangled itself, and wound itself up in perfect
order. "Do you wish anything more, madam?" asked he coldly.

"Percinet, Percinet, do not reproach me; I am only too unhappy."

"It is your own fault. Come with me, and make us both happy." But she
said nothing, and the fairy-prince disappeared.

At sunset, Grognon eagerly came to the prison-door with her three
keys, and found Graciosa smiling and fair, her task all done. There
was no complaint to make, yet Grognon exclaimed that the skein was
dirty, and boxed the princess's ears till her rosy cheeks turned
yellow and blue. Then she left her, and overwhelmed the fairy with
reproaches.

"Find me, by to-morrow, something absolutely impossible for her to
do."

The fairy brought a great basket full of feathers, plucked from every
kind of bird--nightingales, canaries, linnets, larks, doves, thrushes,
peacocks, ostriches, pheasants, partridges, magpies, eagles--in fact,
if I told them all over, I should never come to an end; and all these
feathers were so mixed up together, that they could not be
distinguished.

"See," said the fairy, "even one of ourselves would find it difficult
to separate these, and arrange them as belonging to each sort of bird.
Command your prisoner to do it; she is sure to fail."

Grognon jumped for joy, sent for the princess, and ordered her to take
her task, and finish it, as before, by set of sun.

Graciosa tried patiently, but she could see no difference in the
feathers; she threw them all back again into the basket, and began to
weep bitterly. "Let me die," said she, "for death only will end my
sorrows. Percinet loves me no longer; if he did, he would already have
been here."

"Here I am, my princess," cried a voice from under the basket; and the
fairy-prince appeared. He gave three taps with his wand--the feathers
flew by millions out of the basket, and arranged themselves in little
heaps, each belonging to a different bird.

"What do I not owe you?" cried Graciosa.

"Love me!" answered the prince, tenderly, and said no more.

When Grognon arrived, she found the task done. She was furious at the
fairy, who was as much astonished as herself at the result of their
malicious contrivances. But she promised to try once more; and for
several days employed all her industry in inventing a box, which, she
said, the prisoner must be forbidden on any account to open. "Then,"
added the cunning fairy, "of course, being su