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