n't want
them.'

'Oh,' said Everilda.

The Cat spread her wings, and after one or two trial flights round the
tower, she spread them very wide indeed, and flew away across the black
Perilous Sea, towards a little half moon that was standing on its head
to show sailors that there would be foul weather.

The Princess leaned her elbows on the window-sill and looked out over
the sea. Down below in the garden she could hear the kind moles digging
industriously, and the good little mice weeding and raking with their
sharp teeth and their fine needly claws. And far away against the
low-hanging moon she saw the sails and masts of a ship.

'Oh,' she cried, 'I _can't_! It's sure not to be _his_ ship. It mustn't
be wrecked.'

And she turned the lamp out. And then she cried a little, because
perhaps after all it might be _his_ ship, and he would pass by and never
know.

Next night the Cat went out on another flying excursion, leaving the
lamp lighted. And again the Princess could not bear to go to bed leaving
a lamp burning that might lure honest Kings and brave mariners to
shipwreck, so she put out the lamp and cried a little. And this happened
for many, many, many nights.

When the Cat swept the room of a morning she used to wonder where all
the pearls came from that she found lying all about the floor. But it
was a magic place, and one soon ceased to wonder much about anything.
She never guessed that the pearls were the tears the Princess shed when
she had put out the lamp, and seen ship after ship that perhaps carried
her own King go sailing safely and ignorantly by, no one on board
guessing that on that rock was a pretty, dear Princess waiting to be
rescued--_the_ Princess, the only Princess that that King would be happy
and glad to have for his Queen.

And the years went on and on. Every night the Cat lighted the lamp and
flew away to whisper dreams into the ears of the only King who could
rescue the Princess, and every night the Princess put out the lamp and
cried in the dark. And every morning the Cat swept up a dustpan full of
pearls that were Everilda's tears. And again and again the King would
fit out a vessel and sail the seas, and look in vain for the bright
light that he had dreamed should guide him to his Princess.

The Cat was a good deal vexed; she could not understand how any King
could be so stupid. She always stayed out all night. She used to go and
see her friends after she had done whispering dream