But the Queen and the King only wept, and the Prince played with his rattle and looked at the cat.
Then Malevola said mockingly: “Great King and mighty Sovereign, Malevola was not good enough to be asked to your tea-party. But your family shall come down in the world; your son shall marry a kitchen-maid and marry a lady with four feet and no hands.”
A shiver of horror ran through the room, and Malevola vanished. Then, suddenly, the sun came out, and people lifted up their heads, and dared again to look at each other. And the daisies, too, opened their eyes again.
[Illustration: MALEVOLA’S DRESS WAS NOT AT ALL THE THING FOR A CHRISTENING.]
Then the good fairies came out from behind the window-curtains, and the poor Queen fell on her knees before them.
“Can’t you do _anything_?” she asked. “Can’t you undo what she says, and make it untrue?”
“Not even a fairy can make a true thing untrue,” said the good fairies sadly. “Malevola’s words will come true; but the Prince has already many gifts, and our gifts are yet to give, and these you shall choose. Whatever you wish shall be his.”
Then the King, recovering a little from the terror into which the fairy Malevola had thrown him, and remembering how well he and his royal line had always borne them in battle, said at once—
“He is brave,” said one of the good fairies; “he fears nothing.”
And at this the Prince ceased to feel any fear of the Palace cat. He put out his hand and pulled her tail so merrily that Pussy turned and clawed the little arm till the blood ran.
“Oh, dear!” cried his mother, “he is fearless, as you say. I wish he were afraid of cats, poor darling.”
“He is,” said the second fairy; “you have your wish.” And, indeed, the Prince screamed, and hid his face, and shrank from the Palace cat with such horror that the King pulled out his pencil and note-book and wrote an edict then and there banishing all cats from his dominions. But, all the same, he was very angry.
“Your Majesty has wasted one wish,” he said very politely to the Queen; “let us now leave the last gift in the hands of the last fairy.”
The last fairy came and kissed the Prince, who was now sobbing sleepily.
“He shall be happy,” she said; “he shall have his heart’s desire.”