golden, flooding the whole sky with light?  That is the waxing moon.  Then, you know, it wanes; it grows smaller and paler again, night by night, till at last it disappears for a while, altogether.  Well, poor little Daylight waxed and waned with it.  She was the rosiest, plumpest, merriest baby in the world when the moon was at the full; but as it began to wane her little cheeks grew paler, her tiny hands thinner, with every night, till she lay in her cradle like a shadow-baby, without sound or motion.  At first they thought she was dead, when the moon disappeared, but after some months they got used to this too, and only waited eagerly for the new moon, to see her revive.  When it shone again, faint and silver, on the horizon, the baby stirred weakly, and then they fed her gently; each night she grew a little better, and when the moon was near the full again, she was again a lively, rosy, lovely child.

So it went on till she grew up.  She grew to be the most beautiful maiden the moon ever shone on, and everyone loved her so much, for her sweet ways and her merry heart, that someone was always planning to stay up at night, to be near her.  But she did not like to be watched, especially when she felt the bad time of waning coming on; so her ladies-in-waiting had to be very careful.  When the moon waned she became shrunken and pale and bent, like an old, old woman, worn out with sorrow.  Only her golden hair and her blue eyes remained unchanged, and this gave her a terribly strange look.  At last, as the moon disappeared, she faded away to a little, bowed, old creature, asleep and helpless.

No wonder she liked best to be alone!  She got in the way of wandering by herself in the beautiful wood, playing in the moonlight when she was well, stealing away in the shadows when she was fading with the moon.  Her father had a lovely little house of roses and vines built for her, there.  It stood at the edge of a most beautiful open glade, inside the wood, where the moon shone best.  There the princess lived with her ladies.  And there she danced when the moon was full.  But when the moon waned, her ladies often lost her altogether, so far did she wander; and sometimes they found her sleeping under a great tree, and brought her home in their arms.

When the princess was about seventeen years old, there was a rebellion in a kingdom not far from her father’s.  Wicked nobles murdered the king of the country and stole his throne, and would have murdered the young prince, too, if he had not escaped, dressed in peasant’s clothes.

Dressed in his poor rags, the prince wandered about a long time, till one day he got into a great wood, and lost his way.  It was the wood where the Princess Daylight lived, but of course he did not know anything about that nor about her.  He wandered till night, and then he came to a queer little house.  One of the good fairies lived there, and the minute she saw him she knew all about everything; but to him she looked only like a kind old woman.  She gave him a good supper and a bed for the night, and told him to come back to her if he found no better place for the next night.  But the prince said he must get out of the wood at once; so in the morning he took leave of the fairy.