eaten anything so good in her life. He had at the same time
taken up little Aurora, and carried her to his wife, to conceal her in
the lodging he had at the end of the court yard.

About eight days afterwards, the wicked Queen said to the clerk of the
kitchen:

"I will sup upon little Day."

He answered not a word, being resolved to cheat her, as he had done
before. He went to find out little Day, and saw him with a little
foil in his hand, with which he was fencing with a great monkey; the
child being then only three years of age. He took him up in his arms,
and carried him to his wife, that she might conceal him in her chamber
along with his sister, and in the room of little Day cooked up a young
kid very tender, which the Ogress found to be wonderfully good.

This was hitherto all mighty well: but one evening this wicked Queen
said to her clerk of the kitchen:

"I will eat the Queen with the same sauce I had with her children."

It was now that the poor clerk of the kitchen despaired of being able
to deceive her. The young Queen was turned of twenty, not reckoning
the hundred years she had been asleep: her skin was somewhat tough,
tho' very fair and white; and how to find in the yard a beast so firm,
was what puzzled him. He took then a resolution, that he might save
his own life, to cut the Queen's throat; and going up into her
chamber, with intent to do it at once, he put himself into as great a
fury as he could possibly, and came into the young Queen's room with
his dagger in his hand. He would not, however, surprise her, but told
her, with a great deal of respect, the orders he had received from the
Queen-mother.

"Do it, do it," said she stretching out her neck, "execute your
orders, and then I shall go and see my children, my poor children,
whom I so much and so tenderly loved," for she thought them dead ever
since they had been taken away without her knowledge.

"No, no, Madam," cried the poor clerk of the kitchen, all in tears,
"you shall not die, and yet you shall see your children again; but it
must be in my lodgings, where I have concealed them, and I shall
deceive the Queen once more, by giving her in your stead a young
hind."

Upon this he forthwith conducted her to his chamber; where leaving her
to embrace her children, and cry along with them, he went and dressed
a hind, which the Queen had for her supper, and devoured it with the
same appetite, as if it had been the young Queen. Exceedingl