Princess Berenice sat by a window of her father’s palace, looking out of the Moon. In her hand she held a great white pearl, and smiled, for it was her mother’s birthday gift. The chamber in which she sat was of pure silver, and in the floor was a small window by which she could see out of the Moon and right down on to the Earth, where the moonbeams were going. There it lay like a great green emerald; and wherever the clouds parted to let the moonbeams go through, she could see the tops of the trees, and broad fields with streams running by. “Yonder is the land of the coloured stones,” she said to herself, “that the merchants go down the moonbeams and bring home and sell.” And as she bent lower and lower and gazed with curious eyes, the great pearl rolled from her hand and fell out of the Moon, and went slipping and sliding down a moonbeam, never stopping till it got to the Earth. “My mother’s pearl!” cried the Princess, “the most beautiful of all her pearls that she gave me. I must run down and bring it back; for if I wait it will be lost. And as to-night is the full-moon down there upon Earth, I can return before anyone finds out that I am gone.” The Earth was sparkling a brighter green under the approach of night. “Oh, land of the coloured stones!” cried the Princess; and, slipping through the window, she stepped out of the Moon, and went running down the same moonbeam by which the pearl had fallen. Night came; and the Earth and the Moon lay looking at each other in the midst of heaven, like an emerald and a pearl; but through the palace, and within, over all its gardens and terraces there began to be callings on the Princess Berenice; and presently there were heart-searchings and fear, for they found the empty room with its open window: and the Princess Berenice was not there. Now, not long before this, upon our own Earth there had lived and died a King who had four sons, but only three kingdoms. So when he came to die he gave to each of his three eldest sons a kingdom apiece; but to the youngest, having nothing else left to give, he gave only a pair of travelling shoes, and said: “Wear these, and some day they will take you to fortune!” So, when the King was dead, the young Prince wore the shoes night and day, hoping that some time or another they would take him to fortune. His brothers laughed at him, and said: “Our father was wise to play those old shoes off upon you! If it had been either of us we would have gone and bought ourselves an army and fought for a just share in the inheritance. But you seem pleased, so we ought to be.” Now one day the Prince went out hunting in the forest, and there, having become separated from all his friends, he thoroughly lost his way. Wherever he turned the wood seemed to grow denser, the thickets higher, and the solitude more than he ever remembered before. Night came on, and, there being nothing else that he could do, he lay down and wrapped himself in his cloak and slept.