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!”

Then out started the sixth fairy, who, of course, the others had

arranged should come after the wicked one, in order to undo as much as

she might.

“If she sleep all day,” she said, mournfully, “she shall, at least, wake

all night.”

“A nice prospect for her mother and me!” thought the poor king; for they

loved her far too much to give her up to nurses, especially at night, as

most kings and queens do--and are sorry for it afterwards.

“You spoke before I had done,” said the wicked fairy. “That's against

the law. It gives me another chance.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the other fairies, all together.

“She did. I hadn't done laughing,” said the crone. “I had only got to

Hi, hi! and I had to go through Ho, ho! and Hu, hu! So I decree that if

she wakes all night she shall wax and wane with its mistress, the moon.

And what that may mean I hope her royal parents will live to see. Ho,

ho! Hu, hu!”

But out stepped another fairy, for they had been wise enough to keep two

in reserve, because every fairy knew the trick of one.

“Until,” said the seventh fairy, “a prince comes who shall kiss her

without knowing it.”

The wicked fairy made a horrid noise like an angry cat, and hobbled

away. She could not pretend that she had not finished her speech this

time, for she had laughed Ho, ho! and Hu, hu!

“I don't know what that means,” said the poor king to the seventh fairy.

“Don't be afraid. The meaning will come with the thing itself,” said

she.

The assembly broke up, miserable enough--the queen, at least, prepared

for a good many sleepless nights, and the lady at the head of the

nursery department anything but comfortable in the prospect before her,

for of course the queen could not do it all. As for the king, he made up

his mind, with what courage he could summon, to meet the demands of the

case, but wondered whether he could with any propriety require the First

Lord of the Treasury to take a share in the burden laid upon him.

I will not attempt to describe what they had to go through for some

time. But at last the household settled into a regular system--a very

irregular one in some respects. For at certain seasons the palace rang

all night with bursts of laughter from little Daylight, whose heart the

old fairy's curse could not reach; she was Daylight still, only a little

in the wrong place, for she always dropped asleep at the first hint of

dawn in the east. But her merriment was of short duration. When the moon

was at the full, she was in glorious spirits, and as beautiful as it was

possible for a child of her age to be. But as the moon waned, she faded,

until at last she was wan and withered like the poorest, sickliest child

you might come upon in the streets of a great city in the arms of a

homeless mother. Then the night was quiet as the day, for the little

creature lay in her gorgeous cradle night and day with hardly a motion,

and indeed at last without even a moan, like one dead. At first they

often thought she was dead, but at last they got used to it, and only

consulted the almanac to find the moment when she would begin to revive,

which, of course, was with the first appearance of the silver thread of

the crescent moon. Then she would move her lips, and they would give her

a little nourishment; and she would grow better and better and better,

until for a few days she was splendidly well. When well, she was always

merriest out in the moonlight; but even when near her worst, she seemed

better when, in warm summer nights, they carried her cradle out into

the light of the waning moon. Then in her sleep she would smile the

faintest, most pitiful smile.

For a long time very few people ever saw her awake. As she grew older

she became such a favourite, however, that about the palace there were

always some who would contrive to keep awake at night, in order to be

near her. But she soon began to take every chance of getting away from

her nurses and enjoying her moonlight alone. And thus things went on

until she was nearly seventeen years of age. Her father and mother had

by that time got so used to the odd state of things that they had ceased

to wonder at them. All their arrangements had reference to the state

of the Princess Daylight, and it is amazing how things contrive to

accommodate themselves. But how any prince was ever to find and deliver

her, appeared inconceivable.

As she grew older she had grown more and more beautiful, with the

sunniest hair and the loveliest eyes of heavenly blue, brilliant and

profound as the sky of a June day. But so much more painful and sad was

the change as her bad time came on. The more beautiful she was in the

full moon, the more withered and worn did she become as the moon waned.

At the time at which my story has now arrived, she looked, when the moon

was small or gone, like an old woman exhausted with suffering. This was

the more painful that her appearance was unnatural; for her hair and

eyes did not change. Her wan face was both drawn and wrinkled, and had

an eager hungry look. Her skinny hands moved as if wishing, but unable,

to lay hold of something. Her shoulders were bent forward, her chest

went in, and she stooped as if she were eighty years old. At last she

had to be put to bed, and there await the flow of the tide of life. But

she grew to dislike being seen, still more being touched by any hands,

during this season. One lovely summer evening, when the moon lay all but

gone upon the verge of the horizon, she vanished from her attendants,

and it was only after searching for her a long time in great terror,

that they found her fast asleep in the forest, at the foot of a silver

birch, and carried her home.

A little way from the palace there was a great open glade, covered with

the greenest and softest grass. This was her favourite haunt; for here

the full moon shone free and glorious, while through a vista in the

trees she could generally see more or less of the dying moon as it

crossed the opening. Here she had a little rustic house built for her,

and here she mostly resided. None of the court might go there without

leave, and her own attendants had learned by this time not to be

officious in waiting upon her, so that she was very much at liberty.

Whether the good fairies had anything to do with it or not I cannot

tell, but at last she got into the way of retreating further into the