Then, as the younger Ladies-In-Waiting were thinking of the Gentlemen-Of-The-Court who would be waiting for them among the rose trees and yew hedges, to watch the colored water of the fountains and listen to the harps and flutes, and as the older Ladies-In-Waiting were thinking of comfortable seats out of a draught in the State Ball Room, and having the choicest morsels of roasted peacock and larks’ tongue pie and frozen nectarines, they popped the Princess into bed pretty promptly—indeed, an hour earlier than usual—and went off to celebrate her birthday. The room in which the little Princess lay was as big as a church, and the great bed was as big as a chapel. Four carved posts as tall as palm trees in a tropic jungle, held a canopy of needlework where hunters rode and hounds gave chase and deer fled through dark forests. Below this lay the broad smooth expanse of silken sheet and counterpane, and in the midst, as little and alone as a bird in an empty sky, lay the King’s little daughter. One large tear rolled down her round pink cheek, and then another. The long dull day had tired her, and the great dim room frightened her, and she wanted to see the fireworks she had heard her pages whispering about. She sat up among her lace pillows, and her tears went splash, splash, on the embroidered flowers and leaves of her coverlet. [Illustration] One of the youngest angels happened to be leaning over the parapet of Paradise when the Princess began to cry, and he took in the situation instantly, and hurried off to his Heavenly playmates to tell them about it. “It is her birthday,” he said, “and no one has given her as much as a red apple or a white rose—only silly old rubies and pearls that she wasn’t even allowed to play marbles with! And now they have left her to weep in the dark while they dance and feast! I shall go down to her and sit by her bed till her tears are dry, and take her a white dream as a gift.” “Oh, let me send a dream too!” cried another angel. “And let me!” “And let me!” So that by the time the little angel was ready to start to earth there were seven white dreams to be taken as birthday gifts from Heaven, and he had to weave a basket of moonbeams to carry them in. That night the Princess dreamed that she was a daisy in a field, dancing delicately in the wind among other daisies as thick as the stars in the Milky Way. Feathery grasses danced with them, and yellow butterflies danced above, and the larks in the sky flung down cascades of lovely notes that scattered like spray on the joyous wind.