The _King_, while declaring himself infinitely obliged to the good Fairy _Hippolyta_, could not help feeling that hers was but cold comfort at the best. He gave orders to close the christening festivities at once, although the Fairy _Uglyane_, their spoil-joy, had already taken her departure; passing unharmed through the crowd of folk, every one of whom wished her ill, and riding away--it was generally agreed-upon a broomstick. To satisfy the _King's_ faithful subjects, however,--who were unaware of any misadventure--the palace fireworks were duly let off, with a grand set-piece wishing _Long Life to the Princess Aurora!_ in all the colours of the rainbow. But His Majesty, after bowing from the balcony amid the banging of rockets and hissing of Catherine wheels, retired to a private room with his Chamberlain, and there, still amid the noise of explosions and cheering, drew up the first harsh proclamation of his reign. It forbade every one, on pain of death, to use a spindle in spinning or even to have a spindle in his house. Heralds took copies of this proclamation and marched through the land reading it, to the sound of trumpets, from every market-place: and it gravely puzzled and distressed all who listened, for their women folk prided themselves on their linen. Its fineness was a byword throughout the neighbouring kingdoms, and they knew themselves to be famous for it. 'But what sort of linen,' said they, 'would His Majesty have us spin without spindles?' They had a great affection, however (as we have seen), for their monarch; and for fifteen or sixteen years all the spinning-wheels were silent throughout the land. The little _Princess Aurora_ grew up without ever having seen one. But one day--the _King_ and _Queen_ being absent at one of their country houses--she gave her governess the slip, and running at will through the palace and upstairs from one chamber to another, she came at length to a turret with a winding staircase, from the top of which a strange whirring sound attracted her and seemed to invite her to climb. As she mounted after the sound, on a sudden it ceased; but still she followed the stairs and came, at the very top, to an open door through which she looked in upon a small garret where sat an honest old woman alone, winding her distaff. The good soul had never, in sixteen years, heard of the _King's_ prohibition against spindles; and this is just the sort of thing that happens in palaces. 'What are you doing, goody?' asked the _Princess_. 'I am spinning, pretty one,' answered the old woman, who did not know who she was. 'Spinning? What is that?' 'I wonder sometimes,' said the old woman, 'what the world is coming to, in these days!' And that, of course, was natural enough, and might occur to anybody after living so long as she had lived in a garret on the top of a tower. 'Spinning,' she said wisely, 'is spinning, or was; and, gentle or simple, no one is fit to keep house until she has learnt to spin.'