but by degrees it got wild, and it grew wilder, and wilder, and wilder,
until some said wild beasts at last did what they liked in it.

The king and his courtiers often hunted, however, and this kept the wild
beasts far away from the palace.

One glorious summer morning, when the wind and sun were out together,
when the vanes were flashing and the flags frolicking against

the blue sky, little Daylight made her appearance from somewhere--
nobody could tell where--a beautiful baby, with such bright eyes

that she might have come from the sun, only by and by she showed such
lively ways that she might equally well have come out of the wind.

There was great jubilation in the palace, for this was the first baby
the queen had had, and there is as much happiness over a new baby

in a palace as in a cottage.
But there is one disadvantage of living near a wood: you do not know

quite who your neighbours may be. Everybody knew there were in it
several fairies, living within a few miles of the palace, who always

had had something to do with each new baby that came; for fairies live
so much longer than we, that they can have business with a good many

generations of human mortals. The curious houses they lived in were
well known also,--one, a hollow oak; another, a birch-tree, though

nobody could ever find how that fairy made a house of it; another, a hut
of growing trees intertwined, and patched up with turf and moss.

But there was another fairy who had lately come to the place,
and nobody even knew she was a fairy except the other fairies.

A wicked old thing she was, always concealing her power,
and being as agreeable" target="_blank" title="a.令人不悦的">disagreeable as she could, in order to tempt people

to give her offence, that she might have the pleasure of taking
vengeance upon them. The people about thought she was a witch,

and those who knew her by sight were careful to avoid offending her.
She lived in a mud house, in a swampy part of the forest.

In all history we find that fairies give their remarkable gifts
to prince or princess, or any child of sufficient importance in

their eyes, always at the christening. Now this we can understand,
because it is an ancient custom amongst human beings as well;

and it is not hard to explain why wicked fairies should choose
the same time to do unkind things; but it is difficult to understand

how they should be able to do them, for you would fancy all wicked
creatures would be powerless on such an occasion. But I never knew

of any interference on the part of the wicked fairy that did not
turn out a good thing in the end. What a good thing, for instance,

it was that one princess should sleep for a hundred years! Was she
not saved from all the plague of young men who were not worthy of her?

And did she not come awake exactly at the right moment when the
right prince kissed her? For my part, I cannot help wishing a good

many girls would sleep till just the same fate overtook them.
It would be happier for them, and more agreeable to their friends.

Of course all the known fairies were invited to the christening.
But the king and queen never thought of inviting an old witch.

For the power of the fairies they have by nature; whereas a witch gets
her power by wickedness. The other fairies, however, knowing the

danger thus run, provided as well as they could against accidents
from her quarter. But they could neither render her powerless,

nor could they arrange their gifts in reference to hers beforehand,
for they could not tell what those might be.

Of course the old hag was there without being asked. Not to be
asked was just what she wanted, that she might have a sort of reason

for doing what she wished to do. For somehow even the wickedest
of creatures likes 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 gorgeouscradle 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