Year after year went on, and the Princess still wore the bandage over her eyes. If she ventured to lay a finger upon it, she was punished as severely as if she had been the child of a peasant; but in everything else she did exactly as she liked. Whatever she asked for was always given her and whatever she wished to have done was done at once. Some princesses would have become haughty and disagreeable, but this one was always kind-hearted and unselfish. The King had made no secret of the sad story. Indeed, every one in the kingdom knew it except the Princess herself; and the people loved her so much that they were almost as eager as her parents for her to pass her eighteenth birthday in safety. “They say her eyes are like stars,” whispered the people; and gradually they forgot the many names that had been given her when she was christened and spoke of her only as the Star Princess. Wherever she went, she was guarded not only by two of her nurses, but also by all of her father’s subjects who chanced to be in sight. She had never seen the ocean or the sun or had even a single glimpse of daylight, and yet she was the happiest, merriest little maiden in the world. One reason for this was that she did not know that she was at all different from other people. When little girls were brought to play with her, their eyes were always bandaged like her own, and they played only such games as they could play blindfolded. No one was allowed even to mention the sun or the daylight or the ocean in her presence. “Why do people never uncover their eyes until the candles are lighted for dinner?” she once asked. And the nurses replied, “Because before that time eyes are so ugly that no one can bear to look at them.” One day she asked suddenly, “What is the strange sound that we hear all the time? It is like murmuring and sighing and sobbing and singing. Sometimes it groans and sometimes it almost laughs. Nurses, what is it?” “It is your greatest enemy,” the nurses replied. “It must be a dragon,” thought the Princess, and she asked, “Why doesn’t my father drive it away?” “He would if he could,” the nurses answered, “but it is stronger than he. It never can come any nearer, however; so all its groaning will not hurt you.”