t
the sun would never set; and indeed it was before the appointed time
that she came with her four Fairies, and as she fitted the three keys
into the locks she said:

'I'll venture to say that the idle minx has not done anything at
all--she prefers to sit with her hands before her to keep them white.'

But, as soon as she entered, Graciosa presented her with the ball of
thread in perfect order, so that she had no fault to find, and could
only pretend to discover that it was soiled, for which imaginary fault
she gave Graciosa a blow on each cheek, that made her white and pink
skin turn green and yellow. And then she sent her back to be locked into
the garret once more.

Then the Queen sent for the Fairy again and scolded her furiously.
'Don't make such a mistake again; find me something that it will be
quite impossible for her to do,' she said.

So the next day the Fairy appeared with a huge barrel full of the
feathers of all sorts of birds. There were nightingales, canaries,
goldfinches, linnets, tomtits, parrots, owls, sparrows, doves,
ostriches, bustards, peacocks, larks, partridges, and everything
else that you can think of. These feathers were all mixed up in such
confusion that the birds themselves could not have chosen out their own.
'Here,' said the Fairy, 'is a little task which it will take all your
prisoner's skill and patience to accomplish. Tell her to pick out and
lay in a separate heap the feathers of each bird. She would need to be a
fairy to do it.'

The Queen was more than delighted at the thought of the despair this
task would cause the Princess. She sent for her, and with the same
threats as before locked her up with the three keys, ordering that all
the feathers should be sorted by sunset. Graciosa set to work at once,
but before she had taken out a dozen feathers she found that it was
perfectly impossible to know one from another.

'Ah! well,' she sighed, 'the Queen wishes to kill me, and if I must die
I must. I cannot ask Percinet to help me again, for if he really loved
me he would not wait till I called him, he would come without that.'

'I am here, my Graciosa,' cried Percinet, springing out of the barrel
where he had been hiding. 'How can you still doubt that I love you with
all my heart?'

Then he gave three strokes of his wand upon the barrel, and all the
feathers flew out in a cloud and settled down in neat little separate
heaps all round the room.

'What should I do without you,