All now breathed more freely: there was an end of misgiving and foreboding; and the rude workmen, as if awe-struck by what they had accomplished, stood gazing in silence, and listening to the roar of the brazen cataract. It was not till the cast was completed that the master gave the signal for extinguishing the burning roof. In due time the bell of the little chapel of Neuhausen was heard summoning thither the master and his workmen to thank God for the happy completion of the work. No accident had occurred to any during its progress; not one had suffered either in life or limb. THE FAIRY QUEEN. THE LAST TALE BY THE AUTHOR OF "PUSS IN BOOTS," "CINDERELLA," "LITTLE RED RIDING-HOOD," ETC. "Once upon a time," in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, was born Charles Perrault. We pass over his boyhood and youth to the period when, after having long filled the situation of Commissioner of Public Buildings, he fell into disgrace with his patron, the prime minister Colbert, and was obliged to resign his situation. Fortunately he had not been unmindful of prudential economy during the days of prosperity, and had made some little savings on which he retired to a small house in the Rue St. Jacques, and devoted himself to the education of his children. About this time he composed his fairy tales. He himself attached little literary importance to productions destined to be handed down to posterity, ever fresh and ever new. He usually wrote in the morning the story intended for the evening's amusement. Thus were produced in their turn "Cinderella," "Little Red Riding-Hood," "Blue Beard," "Puss in Boots," "Riquet with the Tuft," and many other wondrous tales which men now, forsooth, pretend to call fictions. Charles Lamb knew better. He was once looking for books for a friend's child, and when the bookseller, seeing him turn from shelves loaded with Mrs. Trimmer and Miss Edgeworth, offered him modern tales of fay and genii, as substitutes for his old favorites, he exclaimed, "These are not my own _true_ fairy tales!" When surrounded by his grandchildren, Perrault related to them the stories he had formerly invented for his children. One evening after having repeated for the seventh or eighth time the clever tricks of "Puss in Boots," Mary, a pretty little girl of seven years of age, climbed up on her grandfather's knee, and giving him a kiss, put her little dimpled hands into the curls of the old man's large wig. "Grandpapa," said she, "why don't you make beautiful stories for us as you used to do for papa and my uncles?" "Yes," exclaimed the other children, "dear grandpapa, you must make a story entirely for ourselves."