ONCE upon a time--for this is the way that every true fairy story begins--once upon a time there was a King and a Queen who loved one another dearly, and had all that they wanted in the world but one thing. That one thing was a child of their own.
For the house was quiet and silent. There was no sound of silver voice and merry laughter; there was no running hither and thither of little feet; there was no bustle and noise and teasing to make life sweet to live.
For so it is always dull and silent in a house where there are no children.
One day, when the sun was shining as yellow as gold, and the apple-trees were all in bloom,--pink and white,--the Queen was walking up and down the garden path, thinking and thinking of how sad it was in the house without any children to make things glad. The tears were in her eyes, and she wiped them away with her handkerchief. Suddenly she heard some one speaking quite near to her: "Lady, lady, why are you so sad?"
The voice came from the apple-tree, and when she looked up among the branches there she saw a beautiful figure dressed all in shining white and sitting amid the apple blossoms, and around the face of the figure it was bright like sunlight.
It was the Moon-Angel, though the Queen did not know that--the Moon-Angel, whom so many people know by a different name and are so afraid of, they know not why. The Queen stood looking up at him, and she felt very still and quiet.
"Why are you so sad, lady?" said the Moon-Angel again.
"Because," said she, "there is no child in the house."
"And if you had a child," said the Moon-Angel, "would that make you happy?"
"Yes," said the Queen.
The Moon-Angel smiled till his face shone bright like white light. "Then be happy," said he, "For I have come to tell you that you shall have a daughter."
Then, even as the Queen looked, he was gone, and nothing was there but the blossoms and the bright blue sky shining through them.
So by and by a little Princess was born to the King and Queen. And she was a real Princess too, for she came into the world with a golden coronet on her head and a golden star on her shoulder, and so the Queen named her Princess Aurelia.
That same day the Queen died--for the Moon-Angel never brings something into the house but he takes something away with him again. So after all they were more sad and sorrowful than if the Princess had never been born.
Princess Aurelia grew and grew and grew, and the older she grew the more beautiful she grew. But the poor King, her father, was more and more sad every day. For nobody had ever seen such a little child as the Princess. She never cried, but then she never laughed; she never was cross, but then she never smiled; she never teased, but then she never spoke a word; she was a trouble to no one, but then she neither romped nor played. All day she sat looking around her with her beautiful blue eyes, and all night long she slept like an angel, but she might just as well have been a lovely doll as a little child of flesh and blood.
Everybody said that she had no wits, but you shall know better than that when you have read this story and have heard about the moon-garden.