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How to Tell Stories to Children, And Some Stories to Tell by Sara Cone Bryant
page 154 of 209 (73%)
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
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