264 RIQUET WITH THE TUFT.

the welfare of my whole life is at stake? Is it just that persons
of sense should be worse treated than those who have none?
Can you, my princess, who are now so very clever, and who s0
much wished to be so, resolve, indeed, to treat me in this man-
ner? But let us reason upon it a little. Ts there anything in
me, besides my being ugly, that you dislike? Do you object to
my birth, my sense, my temper, manners, or rank ?”— No,
none of these,” replied the princess ; “I dislike nothing in you
‘but your being so very ugly.”—* If that is the case,” answered
Riquet, “I shall soon be the most happy man alive ; for you,
princess, have the power to make me as handsome as you
please.” —“ How can that be?” asked the princess. “ Nothing
more is wanting,” said Riquet, “ than that you should love me
well enough to wish me very handsome. In short, my chatming
princess, I must inform you, that the same fairy, who, at my
birth, was pleased to bestow upon me the gift of making the
Jady I loved best as witty as I pleased, was present also at yours,
and gave to you the power of making him whom you should
love the best as handsome as you pleased.”—“ If this is the
case,” said the princess, “ I wish you with all my heart to be
the most handsome prince in all the world; and, as much as
depends on me, I bestow on you the gift of beauty.”

‘As soon as the princess had done speaking, Riquet with the
‘Tuft seemed to her eyes the most handsome, best-shaped, and
most pleasing person that she had ever beheld. Some people
thought that this great change in the prince was not brought
about by the gift of a fairy, but that the love which the
princess felt for him was the only cause of it; and in their
minds, the princess thought so much of the good faith of her
Jover, of his prudence, aad the goodness of his heart and mind,
that she no longer thought of either his being so ugly in his face,
or so crooked in his shape. The hump on his hack, such people
thought, now seemed to her nothing more than the easy gait in