“Wonderful—wonderful!” cried Ethelda, throwing herself in an ecstasy of pleasure upon the soft greensward, and gathering handfuls of the flowers to weave into garlands. “I should like to live here always,” she said. The Sun Prince shared his bride’s delight, but he whispered cautiously: “Take care, sweetheart. Remember a Moon maiden and a Sun Prince can only visit for a twelvemonth. A longer stay would be dangerous; it would keep us here for ever.” “O, yes,” answered Ethelda; “I was hardly in earnest when I spoke, for I could not leave my beloved mother sorrowing. Yet I am very happy here.” Days of pleasure passed, on the journey. Days of wonderment too. When the strangers saw how the small seed planted in the ground—warmed by the sun and watered by the rain—throve and became a tiny blade of grass, a delicate flower, or a magnificent tree, this seemed a miracle to them, for nothing ever grows out of the soil of the Moon or the Sun. One day as they stood on the top of a high mountain they saw a very strange sight. A great sea lay shining in the distance, sparkling and glittering in gold and blue. It washed the shores of magnificent valleys and rich gardens. Fruits and flowers grew in abundance, but the strange sight lay in the fact that the valleys and fruit gardens stretching out so broadly suddenly stopped at a line of yellow sand,—stopped so abruptly that it seemed almost a straight line, it was so clean cut,—and the sand covered hundreds and hundreds of miles of the Earth. “How queer it looks!” they said among themselves; “not a blade of grass, not a tree, on the barren waste! We have never seen anything like it before. What is it?” “It will take two stories to explain that wonderful view lying before us,” replied the guide. “Oh, do tell them!” cried the Moon people in chorus; “we love stories”; and they settled themselves to listen. “Well,” began the guide, “the first relates to the Princess Ethelda.” “To me?” asked the Princess in astonishment. “Yes,” answered the messenger; “look closely at the sea beach and tell me what you see.” “Why, great shining jewels seem strewn over the yellow sands,” said the Princess, perfectly amazed; and in turn each of the Moon people saw the same. “Well,” continued the messenger, turning to the Princess, “when her Imperial Majesty of the Moon consented to your coming to visit the Earth on your bridal trip, she ordered many wedding presents for you, and in finishing the loveliest that she gave you, it came about that that beach was formed. But I will begin the story of the Jewelled Beach. “The Moon was shining through a turquoise-blue sky. Now and then a baby cloud passed before her face, but it was so white and airy that it did not even hide the dazzling lights of her silver palace. One could see them perfectly well, shining through the handsome windows.