[Illustration] The Little Emperor was dreadfully bored. He yawned so that his round little face, as round and yellow as a full moon, grew quite long, and his nose wrinkled up into soft yellow creases, like cream that is being pushed back by the skimmer from the top of a bowl of milk. His slanting black eyes shut up tight, and when they opened they were so full of tears that they sparkled like blackthorn berries wet with rain. “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried his aunt, Princess Autumn Cloud. “The Little Emperor is bored! What shall we do, oh, what shall we do to amuse him? For when he is bored, he very soon grows naughty, and when he is naughty—oh, _dear_!” [Illustration] And she began to cry. But then she was always crying. When she was born her father and mother named her Bright Yellow Butterfly Floating In The Sunshine, but she cried so much that by the time she was five years old they saw that name wouldn’t do at all, and changed it to Autumn Cloud Pouring Down Rain Upon The Sad Gray Sea. She cried about anything. If her Lady-In-Waiting brought her a bowl of tea with honeysuckle blossoms in it, she would cry because they weren’t jasmine flowers. If they were jasmine, she would cry because they weren’t honeysuckle. When the peach trees bloomed she would cry because that meant that spring had come, and that meant summer would soon follow, and then autumn, and then the cold winter. “And oh, how cold the wind will be then, and how fast the snow will fall!” sobbed Princess Autumn Cloud, looking through her tears at the bright pink peach blossoms. She cried because her sea-green jacket was embroidered with storks instead of bamboo trees. She cried because they brought her shark-fin soup in a bowl of green lacquer with a gold dragon twisting around it, instead of a red lacquer bowl with a silver dragon. She cried if the weather was hot. She cried if the weather was cold. And hardest of all she cried whenever the Little Emperor was naughty.