then I
had not a single friend; not one familiar face greeted me.

So one evening I sat at the window, in a desponding mood; and
presently I opened the casement and looked out. Oh, how my heart
leaped up with joy! Here was a well-known face at last--a round,
friendly countenance, the face of a good friend I had known at home.
In, fact it was the MOON that looked in upon me. He was quite
unchanged, the dear old Moon, and had the same face exactly that he
used to show when he peered down upon me through the willow trees on
the moor. I kissed my hand to him over and over again, as he shone far
into my little room; and he, for his part, promised me that every
evening, when he came abroad, he would look in upon me for a few
moments. This promise he has faithfully kept. It is a pity that he can
only stay such a short time when he comes. Whenever he appears, he
tells me of one thing or another that he has seen on the previous
night, or on that same evening. "Just paint the scenes I describe to
you"--this is what he said to me--"and you will have a very pretty
picture-book." I have followed his injunction for many evenings. I
could make up a new "Thousand and One Nights," in my own way, out of
these pictures, but the number might be too great, after all. The
pictures I have here given have not been chosen at random, but follow
in their proper order, just as they were described to me. Some great
gifted painter, or some poet or musician, may make something more of
them if he likes; what I have given here are only hasty sketches,
hurriedly put upon the paper, with some of my own thoughts
interspersed; for the Moon did not come to me every evening--a cloud
sometimes hid his face from me.

[Illustration: THE INDIAN GIRL.]

FIRST EVENING.

"Last night"--I am quoting the Moon's own words--"last night I was
gliding through the cloudless Indian sky. My face was mirrored in the
waters of the Ganges, and my beams strove to pierce through the thick
intertwining boughs of the bananas, arching beneath me like the
tortoise's shell. Forth from the thicket tripped a Hindoo maid, light
as a gazelle, beautiful as Eve. Airy and ethereal as a vision, and yet
sharply defined amid the surrounding shadows, stood this daughter of
Hindostan: I could read on her delicate brow the thought that had
brought her hither. The thorny creeping plants tore her sandals, but
for all that she came rapidly forward. The deer that had come down to
the river to