ead over the country. Laws were made
to forbid the people to keep chickens, or pigs, or cows, or anything
that was noisy; and the children were ordered, by royal proclamation,
never to laugh, and never to cry, and never to quarrel, so that when
the King rode out from his palace not a sound should meet his ears.
But this was not all; for the birds were so frightened by the stillness
of everything that they stopped singing altogether, and the leaves on
the trees ceased to rustle when the wind blew; and even the frogs and
the toads were startled at the hoarseness of their own voices and did
not croak any more, which was the most remarkable thing that ever
happened, for it takes a very great deal to persuade a frog or a toad
that his voice is not charming. The only sound that broke the silence
was the occasional humming of bees, for the King still allowed the
people to keep bees if they liked. "Bees are not noisy," he said.
"They do not grunt, or bark, or croak. I can bear to listen to the
humming of bees." Even the bees did not hum so much as bees generally
do; for the sun soon found that nobody laughed when he was shining his
very best, so he went behind a cloud in a temper and stayed there for
years and years and years; and the bees could not do without sunshine,
even if the King could. So the country grew less beautiful and more
gloomy every year.

But the village without a name in the other King's country, where the
little Princess was being brought up, was a very different kind of
place. It was full of happy people, who made as much noise as they
pleased, and laughed when they were glad, and cried when they were sad,
and never bothered about anything at all. And the chickens ran in and
out of the cottages with the children, and the birds sang all the year
round, and the sun had never been known to stop shining for a single
minute. It was the jolliest country imaginable, for nobody interfered
with anybody else, and the King never made any laws at all, and the
only punishment that existed was for grumbling. It is true that there
was hardly any conversation, for everybody talked at once and nobody
heard what anybody else said; but as it was not often worth hearing,
that did not matter in the least. Everybody was happy and jolly, and
that was the great thing.

Little Sunny the Princess grew up without knowing that she was a
Princess at all; and nobody else knew that she was a Princess either;
and even the Que