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