Ep. 1138 - The Blue Fairy Book - Beauty and the Beast, Pt. 5

Then he went away, after saying, ‘Good-bye, Beauty; good-bye, old man;’ and though Beauty was beginning to think with great dismay of her father’s departure, she was afraid to disobey the Beast’s orders; and they went into the next room, which had shelves and cupboards all round it. They were greatly surprised at the riches it contained. There were splendid dresses fit for a queen, with all the ornaments that were to be worn with them; and when Beauty opened the cupboards she was quite dazzled by the gorgeous jewels that lay in heaps upon every shelf. After choosing a vast quantity, which she divided between her sisters—for she had made a heap of the wonderful dresses for each of them—she opened the last chest, which was full of gold.

‘I think, father,’ she said, ‘that, as the gold will be more useful to you, we had better take out the other things again, and fill the trunks with it.’ So they did this; but the more they put in, the more room there seemed to be, and at last they put back all the jewels and dresses they had taken out, and Beauty even added as many more of the jewels as she could carry at once; and then the trunks were not too full, but they were so heavy that an elephant could not have carried them!

‘The Beast was mocking us,’ cried the merchant; ‘he must have pretended to give us all these things, knowing that I could not carry them away.’