ns on all sides of it; and there she sat crying and pale,
saying that she wanted to be taken back to Hands-pansy and grow up and
marry him, though he was but the poor peasant boy he had always been.

Those that had charge of Nillywill in her high station talked wisely,
telling her to forget him. "For," said they, "such a thing as a princess
marrying a peasant boy can only happen once in a blue moon!"

When she heard that, Nillywill began every night to watch the moon rise,
hoping some evening to see it grow up like a blue flower against the
dusk and shake down her wish to her like a bee out of its deep bosom.

But night by night, silver, or ruddy, or primrose, it lit a place for
itself in the heavens; and years went by, bringing the Princess no
nearer to her desire to find room for Hands-pansy amid the splendours of
her throne.

She knew that he was five thousand miles away and had only wooden
peasant shoes to walk in; and when she begged that she might once
more have sight of him, her whole court, with the greatest utterable
politeness, cried "No!"

The Princess's memory sang to her of him in a thousand tunes, like
woodland birds carolling; but it was within the cage which men call a
crown that her thoughts moved, fluttering to be out of it and free.

So time went on, and Nillywill had entered gently into sweet
womanhood--the comeliest princess that ever dropped a tear; and all she
could do for love was to fill her garden with dark-eyed pansies, and
walk among their humble upturned faces which reminded her so well of her
dear Hands--Hands who was a long five thousand miles away. "And, oh!"
she sighed, watching for the blue moon to rise, "when will it come and
make me at one with all my wish?"

Looking up, she used to wonder what went on there. She and Hands had
stolen into the woods, when children together, and watched the small
earth-fairies at play, and had seen them, when the moon was full, lift
up their arms to it, making, perhaps, signals of greeting to far-off
moon-brothers. So she thought to herself, "What kind are the fairies up
there, and who is the greatest moon-fairy of all who makes the blue moon
rise and bring good-will to the sad wishers of the human race? Is it,"
thought Nillywill, "the moon-fairy who then opens its heart and brings
down healing therefrom to lovers upon earth?"

And now, as happens to all those who are captives of a crown, Nillywill
learned that she must wed with one of her own r