He stood enchanted to hear her; but the words of the song ended suddenly in a deep sigh. The singer lifted her head; her eyes moved like grey moths in the dusk, amid the whiteness of her face. At sight of him they grew still and large, widening with a quiet wonder. Then the beautiful face broke into smiles, and the Princess stretched out her hands to him and laughed. “Have you come,” she said, “to set me free?” “To set you free?” asked the Prince. “I am a prisoner,” she told him. “Alas, then!” answered the Prince, “I am a prisoner also, and can free no one; but were I now free to go wherever I would, I should be a prisoner still, for I have seen the face of the loveliest heart on earth!” “O,” she sighed, “and can you not set me free?” “Tell me,” he said, “what makes you a prisoner here?” She pointed to the net over their heads, to the walls that stood on all sides of them, and to the ground beneath their feet. “That,” she said, “and that, and this.” “Who are you?” he asked, “and where do you come from? and whose power is it that now holds you captive?” She led him on to a terrace, from which they could see out towards the west; and there lay the new Moon, low down in the sky. “Yonder,” she said, pointing to it, “is my home!” She wept. “Shall I ever return to it?” The Prince, gazing at her in wonder, cried, “Are you one of a Fairy race?” “No, oh, no!” she sighed, “I am but mortal like yourself; only my home is there, while yours is here. We, who dwell in the Moon, are as you are, but the sun has greater power over us; the light of it falling on us makes us pale and unsubstantial, so that we weigh not so much as a gossamer and become transparent as thin fleeces of cloud. Then we can go where you cannot go, treading the light as it flies; but at sunset we regain our strength, and our bodies come to us again; and we are as you see me now—no different from yourselves, the inhabitants of the Earth.” “Tell me,” said the Prince, “of yourself, and the dwellers in the Moon! Is it not cold there, and barren?”