e younger was daily uglier, and the elder day by
day became more stupid, until she either said nothing in reply to a
question, or something quite silly, and so clumsy was she that she
could not arrange four china ornaments on the chimney piece without
breaking one, or drink a glass of water without spilling half of it on
her frock.

Although it is a great thing to have beauty, yet the younger generally
received more attention in company than her elder sister.

At first, everybody would gather around the beautiful one admiringly,
but before long they would leave her for the clever Princess, to
listen to her pleasant conversation; and by the end of a quarter of
an hour the elder would be left alone, while the other would be the
centre of a group.

This the elder sister noticed, in spite of her stupidity, and she
would gladly have given all her beauty for half the cleverness of
her sister, and sometimes the Queen, although full of kindness, would
reproach her daughter for her foolishness, which caused the Princess
almost to die of grief.

One day when she had retreated to a wood to brood over her
unhappiness, she saw a little man coming towards her. He was
uncommonly ugly and unpleasing in appearance, but was very richly
dressed.

It was the young Prince Tufty Riquet, who had fallen in love with the
pictures he had seen of her, and had left his father's kingdom for the
sake of making her acquaintance.

Delighted to meet her alone in this manner, he accosted her as
courteously as possible, but soon, noticing that she was melancholy,
he said:

"I cannot understand how it is that anyone as beautiful as you are,
can be as sad as you appear to be; for I must own, that although I
can boast of having seen many beauties, not one have I ever met whose
beauty equalled yours."

[Illustration]

"It pleases you to say so, sir," replied the Princess, and relapsed
into silence.

"Beauty," went on Riquet, "is so delightful that one would give
everything for it, and if anyone is beautiful I can't understand
anything troubling greatly."

"I would rather be as ugly as you," answered the Princess, "and be
clever, than as beautiful as I am, and be stupid."

"To think you are stupid is a sure sign that you have a certain amount
of cleverness, madam," replied Riquet.

"I don't think about that," said the Princess, "but I am quite sure
that I am very silly, and the grief of that is killing me."

"If that is all that troubles