e than you would find it easy to pay, Madam,' answered she; 'but if
you will manage for me to sleep one night in the Chamber of Echoes, I
will give you the emeralds.'

'By all means, my little kitchen-maid,' said Turritella, highly
delighted.

The King did not try to find out where the bracelets had come from, not
because he did not want to know, but because the only way would have
been to ask Turritella, and he disliked her so much that he never spoke
to her if he could possibly avoid it. It was he who had told Fiordelisa
about the Chamber of Echoes, when he was a Blue Bird. It was a little
room below the King's own bed-chamber, and was so ingeniously built
that the softest whisper in it was plainly heard in the King's room.
Fiordelisa wanted to reproach him for his faithlessness, and could not
imagine a better way than this. So when, by Turritella's orders, she
was left there she began to weep and lament, and never ceased until
daybreak.

The King's pages told Turritella, when she asked them, what a sobbing
and sighing they had heard, and she asked Fiordelisa what it was all
about. The Queen answered that she often dreamed and talked aloud.

But by an unlucky chance the King heard nothing of all this, for he took
a sleeping draught every night before he lay down, and did not wake up
until the sun was high.

The Queen passed the day in great disquietude.

'If he did hear me,' she said, 'could he remain so cruelly indifferent?
But if he did not hear me, what can I do to get another chance? I have
plenty of jewels, it is true, but nothing remarkable enough to catch
Turritella's fancy.'

Just then she thought of the eggs, and broke one, out of which came a
little carriage of polished steel ornamented with gold, drawn by six
green mice. The coachman was a rose-coloured rat, the postilion a grey
one, and the carriage was occupied by the tiniest and most charming
figures, who could dance and do wonderful tricks. Fiordelisa clapped her
hands and danced for joy when she saw this triumph of magic art, and as
soon as it was evening, went to a shady garden-path down which she knew
Turritella would pass, and then she made the mice galop, and the tiny
people show off their tricks, and sure enough Turritella came, and the
moment she saw it all cried:

'Little kitchen-maid, little kitchen-maid, what will you take for your
mouse-carriage?'

And the Queen answered:

'Let me sleep once more in the Chamber of Echoes.'

'I