us old
fairy was forgotten. All the people thought that some day the little
princess would be their queen. She was a big girl now, almost a woman.
At last her fifteenth birthday came and, to amuse herself upon that
very morning, she went wandering about the old palace all alone. She
peeped into unused rooms; she took curious old treasures into her
hands; she walked through long halls; she ran up and down dark
corridors.

At last the princess reached the topmost tower of the great palace.
Here a flight of wooden steps led up to a little door that she had
never before seen. The door was close shut, but a rusty key stood in
the lock. She sprang upon the stairs. She turned the rusty key. The
door swung slowly open and the princess saw that, in a far corner of a
dimly lighted room, sat a little, bent old woman. She was spinning.
It was really the jealous old fairy, who had uttered the bad wish so
many years ago, but the princess did not know this.

"Good morrow, good mother," she said. But the old woman kept on
spinning.

"Who are you and where did you come from?" cried the princess. But the
old woman kept on spinning.

"Why do you sit by yourself in this dark room? Have you no home? Have
you no friends? Have you no fire to warm you, or light to cheer you?"
But the old woman kept on spinning.

At last, getting no answer to her questions, the little Briar Rose
stepped across the threshold. She stood beside the old woman's chair,
and, bending over it, called out in her sweet tones, "What is that I
see in your hand, good mother, which whirls about so merrily?" But the
old woman only kept on spinning.

"Let me take that curious thing," said the princess, reaching out her
hand for the spindle.

Then for the first time the old woman lifted her ugly face. She rose
quickly from her chair. She thrust the spindle into the girl's hand.
She opened her wicked old lips. "Take it," she croaked, "and may death
go with it!"

Scarcely had the spindle touched the hand of the poor princess when a
tiny stream of blood flowed from her little finger and she fell into a
deep, deep sleep.

At that moment every one in the great palace fell fast asleep also.
The king slept upon his golden throne; the queen slept in her royal
parlor; the judges slept on the council benches. Fast asleep fell
lords and ladies of the court. Even the flies slept on the walls, and
the fires died down upon the palace hearths. The dogs slept