CHAPTER IV
AND now came the time for the most important part of the ceremony, when the fairy godmothers should declare their gifts to the royal child. All this time the little Princess Briar-Rose had been quietly sleeping in her cradle in the nursery, watched over by an old servant who had tended her mother as a child. Now the King gave orders for the baby to be brought into the banqueting hall. The guests ceased their laughter and talk, and the musicians laid by their instruments.
So the sleeping child was brought and placed in her mother's arms. How tenderly she clasped the baby to her breast, bending over it as though to shield it from all harm. So sweet a sight should have touched the hardest heart, and indeed there was only one person in the room who remained unmoved, and that was the spiteful and jealous fairy, who looked up and bared her yellow teeth in a sneering grin.
"Queen," said she, "your face is pale and your lips tremble. What is it that you fear on this day of the giving of gifts?"
But the Queen shuddered and was silent.
Then a fairy rose in her place and said—
"I will begin. My gift to the Princess Briar-Rose is the gift of Beauty. She shall have eyes like stars, and hair as bright as the sunshine of the spring day on which she was born, and cheeks as fresh and fair as the petals of the flower from which she takes her name. None shall surpass her in loveliness."
Then the second fairy rose in her turn and said: "After Beauty, Wit. The Princess shall be cleverer than any ordinary mortal could ever hope to be."