of the five Fairy gifts were like beauty and riches, worldly
advantages. For instance, there was the little girl who was to have
every earthly pleasure at her feet--i.e. she was to have every thing
she wished for--why she was fifty times worse off than either Aurora
or Julia, for I will tell you whom she was like. She was like the
fisherman's wife in Grimm's German popular fairy tales, who had every
thing she wished, and so at last wished to be king of the sun and
moon. I doubt not you remember her well, and how she was in
consequence sent back to her mud cottage. I think, therefore, I need
not describe the young lady who had _that_ Fairy gift.

There was another who was to be _loved_ wherever she went; but nothing
is worth having that is had so easily, and this child got so sick of
being kissed and fondled and loved, that it was the greatest nuisance
to her possible, for disagreeable people loved her just as much as
nice ones, and for her part she hated them all alike. It was a very
silly Fairy gift.

Come with me then to Ambrosia's God-daughter, whom they visited last,
and whose Fairy gift the other Fairies were to guess at!

Neither you nor I, my dears, ever heard a fairy-laugh. Doubtless it is
a sweet and musical sound. You can perhaps fancy it? Well then, do
fancy it, and how it rang in silver peals when our fairy friends, on
entering the last nursery they had to visit, found Ambrosia's protégée
in a flood of angry tears, stamping her foot on the ground in a
passion! "You naughty naughty girl!" exclaimed the old Nurse, "you'll
wake the baby and make your own eyes so red you won't be fit to be
seen to night by the company!"