One evening that she was prowling, as usual, round the courts and poultry yards of the Castle, to inhale the smell of raw flesh, she overheard little Day crying in a lower room, because the Queen, his mother, was about to whip him for having been naughty, and she also heard little Aurora begging forgiveness for her brother. The Ogress recognised the voices of the Queen and her children, and, furious at having been cheated, she gave orders, in a tone that made everybody tremble, that the next morning early there should be brought into the middle of the court a large copper, which she had filled with toads, vipers, adders, and serpents, in order to fling into it the Queen, her children, the Maître d'Hôtel, his wife, and his maid servant. She had commanded that they should be brought thither with hands tied behind them. There they stood, and the executioners were preparing to fling them into the copper, when the King, who was not expected so early, entered the court-yard on horseback. He had ridden post, and in great astonishment inquired what was the meaning of that horrible spectacle? Nobody dared to tell him, when the Ogress, enraged at the sight of the King's return, flung herself head foremost into the copper, and was devoured in an instant by the horrid reptiles she had caused it to be filled with. The King could not help being sorry for it; she was his mother, but he speedily consoled himself in the society of his beautiful wife and children. Some time for a husband to wait Who is young, handsome, wealthy, and tender, May not be a hardship too great For a maid whom love happy would render. But to be for a century bound To live single, I fancy the number Of Beauties but small would be found So long who could patiently slumber. To lovers who hate time to waste, And minutes as centuries measure, I would hint, Those who marry in haste May live to repent it at leisure. Yet so ardently onwards they press, And on prudence so gallantly trample, That I haven't the heart, I confess, To urge on them Beauty's example. FOOTNOTES: [3] A celebrated distillation of spirit of wine upon rosemary, so-called from the receipt, purporting to have been written by a Queen Elizabeth of Hungary, and first published at Frankfort in 1659. [4] From the explanation contained in this parenthesis, it is probable that we have here the earliest mention of these celebrated articles in a French story; _Jack the Giant-killer_ and _Jack and the Bean-stalk_ being of English origin. [5] _Collet-monté._ The contemporary of the ruff. In the reign of Louis the Fourteenth it was succeeded by the _collet-rabattu_, and totally discarded before his decease. [6] A sauce piquante, as ancient as the fifteenth century, being one of the seventeen sauces named by Taillevant, chief cook to Charles VII. of France, in 1456. MASTER CAT; OR, PUSS IN BOOTS.