The poor man, seeing plainly that an ogress was not to be trifled with, took his great knife and went up to little Aurora's room. She was then about four years old, and came jumping and laughing to throw her arms about his neck, and ask him for sweetmeats. He burst into tears, and the knife fell from his hands; then he went down again and into the farmyard, and there killed a little lamb which he served up with so delicious a sauce, that his mistress assured him she had never eaten anything so excellent. In the meanwhile, he had carried off little Aurora, and given her to his wife, that she might hide her in the lodging which she occupied at the further end of the farmyard. A week later, the wicked Queen said to her head cook, "I will eat little Day for supper." He made no reply, having decided in his own mind to deceive her as before. He went in search of little Day, and found him with a tiny foil in his hand, fencing with a great monkey, though he was only three years old. He carried the child to his wife, who hid him where she had hidden his sister, and then cooked a very tender little kid in the place of little Day, which the ogress thought wonderfully good. All had gone well enough so far, but one evening this wicked Queen said to the head cook, "I should like to eat the Queen with the same sauce that I had with the children." Then the poor cook was indeed in despair, for he did not know how he should be able to deceive her. The young Queen was over twenty years of age, without counting the hundred years she had slept, and no longer such tender food, although her skin was still white and beautiful, and where among all his animals should he find one old enough to take her place? He resolved at last that, to save his own life, he would kill the Queen, and he went up to her room, determined to carry out his purpose without delay. He worked himself up into a passion, and entered the young Queen's room, dagger in hand. He did not wish, however, to take her by surprise, and so he repeated to her, very respectfully, the order he had received from the Queen-mother. "Do your duty," she said, stretching out her neck to him; "obey the orders that have been given you. I shall again see my children, my poor children, whom I loved so dearly," for she had thought them dead, ever since they had been carried away from her without a word of explanation. "No, no, madam!" replied the poor cook, touched to the quick, "you shall not die, and you shall see your children again, but it will be in my own house, where I have hidden them; I will again deceive the Queen-mother by serving up to her a young hind in your stead."