Page:Sleeping beauty in the wood (2).pdf/15

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IN THE WOOD.
15

which the Ogress praised as much as the former, saying, It was wonderfully good.

All hitherto, was mighty well, but a few evenings after, this craving Ogress, said to the clerk of the kitchen; I will also eat the young Queen with the same sauce that I had with her children

Now was the critical time that the poor clerk despaired of being able to deceive her.

The young Queen was turned of twenty years of age (not counting the hundred she had been asleep) though her skin was somewhat tough, yet fair and beautiful, and how to find a beast in the yard so firm, was what puzzled him, and made him at a loss.

He then took a resolution, that he must save his own life and cut the Queen's throat; and going into her chamber, with an intent to do it at once, he put himself into as great a fury as he could, and went into the Queen's room, with his dagger in his hand. However, his humanity would not allow him to surprise her, but he told her with a great deal of respect, the order he had received from the Queen her mother.

Do it, said she, stretching out her neck, execute your orders, and then I shall see my children whom I so dearly loved, for she thought them dead ever since they had been taken from her.

No, no, fair Princess, cried the humane clerk of the Kitchen, all in tears, you shall