le.

"A few hours after your birth your mother was thrown into the most
violent convulsions which I could not calm. I left her for a few moments
to invoke the aid of the queen of the fairies. When I returned your
mother was dead.

"The wicked fairy Detestable had profited by my absence and caused her
death. She was about to endow you with all the passions and vices of
this evil world, when my unexpected return happily paralyzed her
efforts. I interrupted her at the moment when she had endowed you with a
curiosity sufficient to make you wretched and to subject you entirely to
her power at fifteen years of age. By my power, united to that of the
queen of the fairies, I counter-balanced this fatal influence and we
decided that you should not fall under her power at fifteen years of
age, unless you yielded three times under the gravest circumstances to
your idle curiosity.

"At the same time the queen of the fairies, to punish the fairy
Detestable, changed her into a mouse, shut her up in the little garden
house, and declared that she should never leave it unless you
voluntarily opened the door. Also, that she should never resume her
original form of fairy unless you yielded three times to your criminal
curiosity before you were fifteen years of age. Lastly, that if you
resisted once the fatal passion you should be for ever released, as well
as myself, from the power of the fairy Detestable.

"With great difficulty I obtained all these favors and only by promising
that I would share your fate and become, like yourself, the slave of
the fairy Detestable, if you weakly allowed yourself to yield three
times to your curiosity. I promised solemnly to educate you in such a
manner as to destroy this terrible passion, calculated to cause so many
sorrows.

"For all these reasons I have confined myself and you, Rosalie, in this
enclosure. I have permitted you to see no one, not even a domestic. I
procured by my power all that your heart desired and I have been feeling
quite satisfied in having succeeded so well with you. In three weeks you
would have been fifteen, and for ever delivered from the odious yoke of
the fairy Detestable.

"I was alarmed when you asked for the key of the little house, of which
you had never before seemed to think. I could not conceal the painful
impression which this demand made upon me. My agitation excited your
curiosity. In spite of your gaiety and assumed thoughtlessness, I
penetrated your thoug