When the Princess had contemplated Anguillette for a few moments, she was touched with compassion, and running to the riverside, put her gently into the water. This unexpected service filled the Fairy's heart with gratitude. She appeared on the surface, and said to the Princess, "I owe you my life, generous Plousine (such was her name), but it is most fortunate for you that I do so. Be not afraid," she continued, observing the young Princess about to run away. "I am a Fairy, and will prove the truth of my words by heaping an infinite number of favours upon you."
As people were accustomed in those days to behold Fairies, Plousine recovered from her first alarm, and listened with great attention to the agreeable promises of Anguillette. She even began to answer her; but the Fairy interrupting her, said, "Wait till you have profited by my favour before you express your acknowledgments. Go, young Princess, and return to this spot to-morrow morning. Think, in the meantime, what you would wish for, and whatever it may be I will grant it. You may, at your choice, possess the most perfect and bewitching beauty, the finest and most charming intellect, or incalculable riches." After these words, Anguillette sank to the bottom of the river, and left Plousine highly gratified with her adventure.
She determined not to tell any one what had befallen her, "For," said she, to herself, "if Anguillette should deceive me, my sisters will believe that I invented this story."
After this little reflection, she hastened to rejoin her suite, which was composed of only a few ladies. She found them looking for her.
The young Plousine was occupied all the succeeding night in thinking what should be her choice. Beauty almost turned the scale; but as she had sufficient sense to desire still more, she finally determined to request that favour of the Fairy.
She rose with the sun, and ran to the meadow under the pretence of gathering flowers to make a garland, as she said, to present to the Queen, her mother, at her levée. Her attendants dispersed themselves about the meadow to cull the freshest and most beautiful of the flowers with which it was everywhere enamelled.
Meanwhile, the young Princess hastened to the riverside, and found upon the spot where she had seen the Fairy, a column of white marble, of the most perfect purity. An instant afterwards, the column opened and the Fairy emerged from it, and appeared to the Princess no longer as a fish, but as a tall and beautiful woman, of majestic demeanour, and whose robes and head-dress were covered with jewels.
"I am Anguillette," said she to the young Princess, who gazed upon her with great attention; "I come to fulfil my promise. You have chosen intellectual perfection, and you shall possess it from this very moment. You shall have so much sense as to be envied by those who till now have flattered themselves they were specially endowed with it."
The youthful Plousine, at these words, felt a considerable alteration taking place in her mind. She thanked the Fairy with an eloquence that till then she had been a stranger to.
The Fairy smiled at the astonishment the Princess could not conceal at her own powers of expression. "I am so much pleased with you," said the benignant Anguillette, "for making the choice you have done, in lieu of preferring beauty of person, which has such charms for one of your sex and age, that to reward you, I will add the gift of that loveliness you have so prudently foregone. Return hither to-morrow, at the same hour,—I give you till then to choose the style of beauty you would possess."