another chair was
brought, and another place laid for Tormentilla; and both the King and
Queen told her over and over again how very, very sorry they were not
to have asked her.

It was all in vain. Nothing could please her; she would eat and
drink nothing, and she sat, scowling and looking angrily at the other
fairies' jeweled cups and dishes, until the feast was over, and it was
time to give the presents.

Then they all went into the great tapestried room where the tiny
Princess lay sleeping in her mother-o'-pearl cradle, and the seven
fairies began to say what they would each give her.

The first stepped forward and said: "She shall always be as good as
gold"; the second: "She shall be the cleverest Princess in the world";
the third: "She shall be the most beautiful"; the fourth: "She shall
be the happiest"; the fifth: "She shall have the sweetest voice that
was ever heard"; the sixth: "Everyone shall love her." And then the
wicked old cross fairy strode over to the cradle with long quick
steps, and said, shaking her black crooked stick at the King and
Queen: "_And I say that she shall prick her hand with a spindle and
die of the wound_!"

At this the Queen fell on her knees and begged and prayed Tormentilla
to call back her cruel words; but suddenly the seventh fairy, the
youngest of all, who knew Tormentilla well, and had hidden herself
behind the curtains for fear that some such thing might happen, came
out and said:

"Do not cry so, dear Queen; I cannot quite undo my cousin's wicked
enchantment, but I can promise you that your daughter shall not die,
but only fall asleep for a hundred years. And, when these are past and
gone, a Prince shall come and awaken her with a kiss."

So the King and Queen dried their tears and thanked the kind fairy
Heartsease for her goodness; and all the fairies went back to their
homes, and things went on much as usual in the palace. But you can
imagine how careful the Queen was of her little girl; and the King
made a law that every spindle in the country must be destroyed, and
that no more should be made, and that anyone who had a spindle should
be heavily punished if not executed at once.

Well, the years went by happily enough until the Princess Miranda was
almost eighteen years old, and all that the six fairies had promised
came true, for she was the best and the prettiest and the cleverest
Princess in all the world, and everybody loved her. And, indeed, by
this time Tor