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“Ungrateful queen,” said the crab, “have you forgotten the fairy of the fountain? You sent for these my sisters, and not for me, who am the one to whom you owed most of all.”

The queen made a hundred apologies, and the six fairies tried vainly to pacify the other one; but she was determined, as she said, to punish ingratitude. “However,” added she, “I will give no worse gift to the princess than to warn you, that if you let her see daylight before she is fifteen years old, you will repent it.” So saying, she retired backwards, crab-fashion, resisting all entreaties to resume her proper form and join in the festivities.

The afflicted mother took council with the six fairies how she was to save her baby from this impending evil, and after many conflicting opinions they advised her to build a tower without doors or windows, and with a subterranean entrance, which the princess might inhabit till she had passed the fatal age. Everything is easy to fairies; so three strokes of their wands, making eighteen strokes in all, began and finished the edifice. It was built of green and white marble, ornamented inside with diamonds and emeralds, and hung with tapestry–all fairy work–on which was pictured the lives of heroes. Though there was only lamp-light allowed, yet the lamps were so numerous, that they made the tower seem as bright as day. Whether the princess was ever permitted any fresh air, or taken out for a walk by starlight or moonlight, the history does not say; but it does say one thing, that she grew up very happy, very lovely, and very well educated.

The six fairies came frequently to see her, and were most kind and affectionate to her; but the one she loved best among them all was Tulip. By this fairy’s advice, the nearer she approached the age of fifteen, the more carefully was Desiree shut up from daylight. But her mother, who was very proud of her beauty, caused her portrait to be painted, and sent among all the neighbouring courts, in order that some prince might seek her in marriage. There was one prince who was so captivated by this likeness, that he shut himself up with it, and talked to it, as if it had been alive, making love to it in the most passionate manner, and then falling into a hopeless melancholy.

When his father tried to discover the cause of this–“Sir,” said Prince Warrior (he went by that name, because, young as he was, he had already gained three battles), “my grief is that you wish me to marry the Black Princess, while I will only marry the Princess Desiree. I have seen her portrait, and without her I shall surely die. Behold her!”

The king looked at the portrait. “Well, my son, I cannot wish for a more charming daughter-in-law, we will retract our offers for the Black Princess, and send an ambassador to propose for the Princess Desiree.”

The prince, kissing his father’s hand, overwhelmed him with his gratitude and joy. A courtier, Becafico by name, young and gallant, was despatched with eighty equipages, a hundred mounted squires, and the portrait of the Prince Warrior, to ask the Princess Desiree in marriage. The report of his splendours travelled before him, till it reached the ears of the king and queen, and of the six fairies, who were all equally delighted.

“But,” said the Fairy Tulip, who was the sagest of them, “beware, queen, of allowing Becafico to see our child,” as they tenderly called Desiree, “and do not upon any account suffer her to leave her tower for the kingdom of Prince Warrior until her fifteenth birthday is past.”

The ambassador arrived; his magnificent train took twenty-three days in going through the gates of the city. He made his harangue to the king and queen, and much state ceremonial passed between them; then he begged for the honour of an audience with the princess, and was very much astonished to find it denied him–still more so, when the king candidly told him the whole story.