loft, and brought her more wool than she could spin in a hundred years.
The queen continued in low spirits, and the king again asked her what was the matter. She told him that walking by the river-side she had lost one of her green satin slippers. "Is that all?" said the king. He sent an order to all the shoemakers in the kingdom, and they furnished her majesty with ten thousand green satin slippers.
She still continued sad. The king again asked what ailed her. She told him that in eating too hastily she had swallowed her wedding-ring, which had slipped off her finger. The king knew she told him a falsehood, for he had the ring safe in his own possession. "My dear wife," said he to her, "you are not speaking the truth. Here is your ring, which I put for safety into my purse." The queen was much confused at being caught telling a falsehood, for lying is the most disgraceful thing in the world, and she saw that the king was angry. She therefore told him what the fairies had predicted about little Rosette, and requested him to say if he could think of any remedy for the evil. The king was so much distressed that he said at once to the queen, "I do not see any other way to save our two sons than by putting to death the little girl whilst she is in her swaddling-clothes." But the queen exclaimed that she would sooner suffer death herself; that she never would consent to so cruel a deed, and that the king must think of something else.
The minds of their majesties being naturally occupied with this matter entirely, some one informed the queen that in a great forest near the city there was an old hermit who lived in a hollow tree, and who was consulted by people from all parts of the world. "I must seek him also," said the queen; "the Fairies have told me the danger, but have forgotten the remedy." She rose very early, and mounted a beautiful little white mule shod with gold, two of her maids of honour accompanying her, each on a handsome horse. When they were near the wood, the queen and her ladies dismounted, out of respect for the hermit, and went on foot to the tree he lived in. He objected to the sight of females, but when he saw it was the queen he said to her, "You are welcome; what is your will with me?" She told him what the Fairies had said about Rosette, and requested his advice. He told her she
