When well, she was always merriest out in the moonlight; but even when near her worst, she seemed better when, in warm summer nights, they carried her cradle out into the light of the waning moon.

Then in her sleep she would smile the faintest, most pitiful smile.
For a long time very few people ever saw her awake.

As she grew older she became such a favourite, however, that about the palace there were always some who would contrive to keep awake at night, in order to be near her.

But she soon began to take every chance of getting away from her nurses and enjoying her moonlight alone.

And thus things went on until she was nearly seventeen years of age.