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“Well,” said the Coquette, “these purses are apparently your desire; go then to the bin where you deposit your bread, and you will find them. Only say how many pounds you wish them to contain.”

“Oh, if there were but a hundred pounds in each,” replied Thomas, “that would be sufficient to extend our little commerce, and send our wooden shoes to China itself.”

“Your wish is accomplished,” said the fairy; “go away, and permit your wife to come in her turn.”

The good dame had also passed a sleepless night, and had never before been so much agitated or so unhappy; sometimes she wished for riches, and then thought, riches would not prevent her from dying–so she had better wish that she might live a hundred years. Now one idea filled her mind, now another; it seemed as if the fairy should have given her at least a month to deliberate. At last she suddenly said: “Madam Fairy, I am very old, and what I desire most is a daughter, to assist me in household management and to keep me company; my husband almost lives in the woods and leaves me at break of day; my sons also go about their business; we are without neighbours, and I have nobody to speak to.”

“Be it so,” said the fairy; “you shall have the prettiest daughter imaginable, and she shall speak from her birth, in order that no time may be lost. Call your husband and sons; I hope to find all parties content.”

The little family assembled, but harmony was not the result of their communications. The young men thought their father’s wish quite pitiful, and the woodcutter by no means relished the idea of another child. The fairy, however, provided an excellent breakfast, and the wine reanimated his spirits.

“Now I promise,” said Coquette, “that you shall have a daughter, who at the moment of her birth will be endowed with the figure and the intelligence of twelve years old. Call her Rose, for her complexion shall shame the flower which bears that name.”

“And I pronounce that she shall also be as black as ebony, and become, before the age of fifteen, the wife of a great king,” said a very strong voice in clear and distinct accents, accompanied by shouts of laughter, which evidently proceeded from a great pitcher placed at the corner of the chimney.

The Fairy Coquette turned pale, and consternation was general; but the woodcutter, now merry with wine, joined in the laugh. “Ah! how droll,” said he, “red and black roses! A likely story, indeed, that a great king would come a-wooing to a woodcutter’s daughter! Only a pitcher could invent such nonsense, and I shall teach it to utter no more.”

Thus saying, he gave the pitcher a great kick and broke it in pieces; when there issued from it a smoke thick and black, and so stifling that Coquette was obliged to use two bottles of essence to dissipate its noxious effects.

“Ah, cruel Barabapatapouf!” cried she, “must your malignity then extend even to those whom I wish to benefit? I indeed recognise my enemy,” said she to the woodcutter; “beware of him, and believe that it is with no good intention he destines your daughter for the bride of a king. Some mystery is here concealed, foreboding evil.”

Every one was rendered quite melancholy by this adventure, and Coquette, beginning to weary of these poor foresters, opened the window and disappeared.

A great quarrel then arose between the woodcutter and his sons, who, forgetting that respect in which they had never before failed, reproached him for losing an opportunity of rendering them all happy. “We might,” said they, “have purchased estates, finery of all kinds, and been as rich and noble as many who now despise us. One or two millions would have been as easy said as five hundred pounds; that sum would obtain a marquisate for my father, and baronies for each of us. What extraordinary stupidity our parents have shown!”