did their best, but, alas!
nobody could even pretend that any of the ladies could compare for a
moment with the late queen.

At length, one day, when he had turned away discouraged from a fresh
collection of pictures, the king's eyes fell on his adopted daughter,
who had lived in the palace since she was a baby, and he saw that, if
a woman existed on the whole earth more lovely than the queen, this was
she! He at once made known what his wishes were, but the young girl, who
was not at all ambitious, and had not the faintest desire to marry him,
was filled with dismay, and begged for time to think about it. That
night, when everyone was asleep, she started in a little car drawn by a
big sheep, and went to consult her fairy godmother.

'I know what you have come to tell me,' said the fairy, when the maiden
stepped out of the car; 'and if you don't wish to marry him, I will show
you how to avoid it. Ask him to give you a dress that exactly matches
the sky. It will be impossible for him to get one, so you will be quite
safe.' The girl thanked the fairy and returned home again.

The next morning, when her father (as she had always called him) came
to see her, she told him that she could give him no answer until he had
presented her with a dress the colour of the sky. The king, overjoyed
at this answer, sent for all the choicest weavers and dressmakers in the
kingdom, and commanded them to make a robe the colour of the sky without
an instant's delay, or he would cut off their heads at once. Dreadfully
frightened at this threat, they all began to dye and cut and sew, and in
two days they brought back the dress, which looked as if it had been cut
straight out of the heavens! The poor girl was thunderstruck, and did
not know what to do; so in the night she harnessed her sheep again, and
went in search of her godmother.

'The king is cleverer than I thought,' said the fairy; 'but tell him you
must have a dress of moonbeams.'

And the next day, when the king summoned her into his presence, the girl
told him what she wanted.

'Madam, I can refuse you nothing,' said he; and he ordered the dress to
be ready in twenty-four hours, or every man should be hanged.

They set to work with all their might, and by dawn next day, the dress
of moonbeams was laid across her bed. The girl, though she could not
help admiring its beauty, began to cry, till the fairy, who heard her,
came to her help.

'Well, I could not have believed it of