danger thus run, provided as well as they could against accidents
from her quarter. But they could neither render her powerless,
nor could they arrange their gifts in reference to hers beforehand,
for they could not tell what those might be.

Of course the old hag was there without being asked. Not to be
asked was just what she wanted, that she might have a sort of reason
for doing what she wished to do. For somehow even the wickedest
of creatures likes a pretext for doing the wrong thing.

Five fairies had one after the other given the child such gifts
as each counted best, and the fifth had just stepped back to her
place in the surrounding splendour of ladies and gentlemen, when,
mumbling a laugh between her toothless gums, the wicked fairy
hobbled out into the middle of the circle, and at the moment
when the archbishop was handing the baby to the lady at the head
of the nursery department of state affairs, addressed him thus,
giving a bite or two to every word before she could part with it:

"Please your Grace, I'm very deaf: would your Grace mind repeating
the princess's name?"

"With pleasure, my good woman," said the archbishop, stooping to
shout in her ear: "the infant's name is little Daylight."

"And little daylight it shall be," cried the fairy, in the tone
of a dry axle, "and little good shall any of her gifts do her.
For I bestow upon her the gift of sleeping all day long, whether she
will or not. Ha, ha! He, he! Hi, hi!"