Through the rest of her life the gentleness of the lamb lay in the heart of the Princess.
The next night she dreamed that she was a white butterfly drifting with other butterflies among the tree ferns and orchids of the jungle, gentle and safe from harm, although serpents lay among the branches of the trees and lions and tigers roamed through the green shadows.
A white butterfly flew in at her window the next day. “A moth! A moth!” cried the Ladies-In-Waiting. “Camphor and boughs of cedar must be procured instantly, or the dreadful creature will eat up Her Highness’s ermine robes!”
But the little Princess knew better than that.
On the fifth night she dreamed that she was a tiny white egg lying in a nest that a humming bird had hung to a spray of fern by a rope of twisted spider’s web. The nest was softly and warmly lined with silky down, and above her was the soft warmth of the mother bird’s breast.
On the sixth night she was a snowflake. It was Christmas night, and the towns and villages were gay. Rosy light poured from every window, blurred by the falling snow, and the air was full of the sound of bells. High up on the mountain was a lonely wayside shrine with carved and painted wooden figures of the Mother and Her Child whose Birthday it was. There were no bells there, nor yellow candle light, but only snow and dark evergreen trees. The snowflake, whirling and dancing down from the sky, a tiny frosty star, gave its life as a birthday gift to the Holy Child, lying for its little moment in His outstretched hand.
