The Storm King is a stern father, and requires strict obedience from his daughters. The slightest neglect of their work makes him very angry, and then his voice thunders and his eyes flash lightning glances through the sky. So you can see he is not a pleasant old gentleman to provoke, and the maidens are cautious of making him angry. But when he is good-natured he sends the nice gentle rain to cool the earth, so he is not altogether bad.

Now all those lovely drops falling from the sky are drawn up first from the earth, and these charming maidens I am going to tell you about have that hard work to perform. They let down great golden buckets, held by long silken ribbons of color, from the cloud palaces, and draw them slowly up again, filled with water. Day in and day out the Cloud Sisters draw up their jewelled pails until the cloud palaces are filled to overflowing, and then, carefully locking and closing the gates, they await the old Storm King's orders for rain. Sometimes it is a mild little sprinkle with millions of tiny drops deluging the world, and again, maybe, he orders a cloud-burst of water and hail in a furious storm. The cloud palaces are very beautiful. They lie white against the blue sky like great mountains of snow, or shimmer, at noonday, in little fleecy patches of wool across the heavens. Toward sunset they are quite gorgeous and put on their festal robes, and then every color of the rainbow seems to mingle with them.

Now the Cloud Maidens live in these glowing regions during the day, and their long streaming skirts float behind them when they sail across the sky. They are always busily at work drawing up water, and often you can watch them and plainly see the long ribbon streamers lowered. At night, however, when they have locked the palace gates and given the keys into the keeping of the Storm King, they rest from their labors, and choosing a pretty spot in which to sleep, they wait there until morning. Their bright faces shine out from the heavens like stars, and people on the earth looking up and seeing the sparkling cluster, call them the Seven Sisters.

Well, the brightest and prettiest of these seven little sisters fell in love with the Man in the Moon! He sailed by in his splendid silver palace every night, and he always stopped and chatted with the lovely Cloud Sisters. He was known to be a flirt, to be sure, but he was very handsome, and the innocent little Cloud Maiden believed in him. The other maidens smiled to themselves and sympathized with their youngest sister in her love affair, and at last when the Man in the Moon proposed to marry the little Cloud Maiden and take her away to his home in the mountains of the moon, they did not object.

But the old Storm King, who now heard for the first time of the love affair, raged and tore his beard at the bare suggestion, and declared his child should not become the wife of such a flirt as the Man in the Moon. His daughter was terribly frightened at her father's words, but she was very much in love, and she said she could not give up her sweetheart. Then the Storm King became very angry, and banished her forever from her place in the heavens beside her shining sisters. No one knew where she was sent, but the next evening only six sisters appeared in the star cluster. The Man in the Moon was very sorrowful at losing the little maiden, but he made up his mind never to stop searching until he should find her. The Cloud Sisters could not help him, because they did not know themselves where to find the lost one. But the Man in the Moon did not give up, and continued to plead with the old King.

At last, wearied with his prayers, the Storm Bing said: "If you succeed in finding her, I will consent, and that is the only hope I will give you. But she is so securely hidden from your eyes that your search will be useless; and as you can never discover her hiding-place, you had better choose another bride and forget her."

But the Man in the Moon could not forget, and night after night he continued to wander through the heavens looking for his lost darling. Time passed, and still the six sisters were alone in the sky; and the moon, floating splendidly through the blue vault, contained but a sad, pale-faced lover. The brook and the ocean smiled up at him, the trees and the flowers beckoned to him, but, gloomy and unhappy, he gave no response to their invitation. He had lost all desire for amusement, for this time he was really in love. As he looked down upon. the earth, he suddenly made up his mind to look for his sweetheart there. So wrapping himself in a long dark cloak, he slid down upon a moonbeam.

When he arrived, Mother Earth received him with open arms, hoping he had at last come to court one of her own lovely daughters, for the maidens of the earth were then as now very beautiful and fair to look upon. The Man in the Moon had flirted for so many years with members of her family that the old lady had despaired of his ever proving serious in his attentions, but this sudden visit gave her confidence again, and she wondered which one of her daughters he would woo.

But she was sadly disappointed in her hopes when she learned that, after all, he had not come to ask for one of her children in marriage. Pride kept her from showing her feelings, however, although she could not help being a trifle haughty in her manner when she extended to him the hospitality of the world. He looked among the lovely maidens of the earth, trying to find the pretty Cloud Sister, but it was a useless search. After walking many miles he reached a dense forest where the air was heavy and damp, and, feeling very tired, he chose a low stump and sat down to rest awhile.

All of a sudden a stone flew out of a tree and bit him right on the nose. He jumped up to find who had thrown it, and saw, sitting in the branches over his head, a black, grinning old monkey.

"What do you wish in monkeyland?" said the ape.

"Is this monkeyland!" replied the Man in the Moon. "Well, I wonder if you have seen a beautiful creature with long silken hair, and exquisite eyes, and the fairest of faces, passing this way? I am searching for my lost bride, and I can never be happy until I find her."

"Yes, indeed," replied the funny old monkey, swinging himself down by his long arms to the ground. "You surely have come to the right place for her; but it will be useless to try to get her back, for our King has fallen madly in love with her, and intends to marry her himself."

Then he told the Man in the Moon how, just a few days before, they had found a beautiful creature wandering around alone, lost in the woods. They thought she must have dropped from the clouds. When their little band had captured her among the rocks, they had at once brought her before their King, and he had determined to marry her and make her his Queen, in spite of the fact that she could not climb a tree. They were now all busy preparing for the wedding, which would take place in a week.

Thousands of busy chattering monkeys were bounding about, leaping from tree to tree, swinging themselves clear across great wide branches, gathering cocoanuts to store away, and draping with moss lovely bowers for the King and his bride to go to housekeeping in.

But they did not seem to be accomplishing much, for monkeys are great thieves, and as soon as a little moss was draped over a tree by one of them, another would come and steal it away. It certainly looked as if the house for the bridal couple would never be finished. The pile of cocoanuts, too, would disappear in the same mysterious way. At last the older monkeys put sentinels to watch for the thieves, and when the robbers appeared there was a regular battle. They tumbled over one another, yelling with anger and almost tearing each other to pieces.

So you can see it was rather slow work preparing for the wedding feast. They had hidden the bride for safety, fearing because of her great beauty she might be stolen. The Man in the Moon felt it was useless to search for her, because he knew how well monkeys hide everything, and he thought the best way to get her back would be to wait for the day of the wedding and seize her just as she was brought out for the ceremony. So he determined to find the red dwarfs, and ask them to aid him in his fight with the monkeys. They are great enemies of the monkeys, because it is their duty to watch the trees and grasses and flowers, destroying insects that would injure them, and curing the sick roots, while the monkeys tear and destroy everything, and thus are always at war with the dwarfs. He was not long in interesting them in his love affair, and they armed themselves and returned with him to monkey-land.

Concealing themselves among the low bushes and shrubs, they kept out of sight until the wedding day. Then they crept as near the monkey village as they could without being seen, and awaited the bridal procession. At last it was seen approaching, and the impatient Man in the Moon could hardly wait to see his beloved. He felt so angry with the ugly and conceited old monkey king, who came first, dancing with joy, that he could scarcely keep from whipping him right on the spot.

The bride appeared at last, covered with leaves and grasses and crowned with yellow swamp lilies. But the Man in the Moon nearly died of fright when he caught sight of her. Instead of his dainty little Cloud Maiden, he beheld a hideous creature. She had tiny bead-like eyes and a hairy black face, and was a dreadful sight to behold.

"Shall we seize her?" whispered one of the dwarfs, breathless with excitement.

"Alas, no!" sadly replied the Man in the Moon, "it is a mistake. She is not my beautiful bride at all, but only an ugly old baboon."

Well, the disheartened lover was greatly disappointed, of course, but was much encouraged by the red dwarfs, who begged him to consult an old owl who lived on a mountain near by. She was a cousin of the cat, and was known to be very wise and always to give good advice. She was most highly thought of by the birds, and was often consulted by them in difficult matters.

The owl was quite delighted to meet the Man in the Moon because, as she told him, he was such a surprise! She had always heard the moon was made of green cheese, and to find a handsome tall young man before her was a great pleasure indeed. She promised she would do all she could to help him, and she said that on this particular occasion she felt it was almost her duty to solve the mystery of the lost Cloud Maiden.

But it seemed such a useless task for a quiet old owl to try to fathom a mystery which had piwzled the great Man in the Moon. Still she determined to try, and she lay awake all night planning what she would do.

One evening, very late indeed, she got down from her nest, leaving her babies with their father, and thought she would take a walk, just to quiet her nerves. She walked down the mountain-side until she came to a cave at its base. She was standing there thinking hard when she heard a deep moan. She listened attentively and heard it again, and at the same time a fine white veil seemed to issue from a crack in the rock and slowly rise like a thread of smoke. Then she remembered that she had lately noticed this fine mist and had wondered what it was. Sometimes it had lain close to the valley, which it covered like a white veil, then again it had risen higher and hid the trees. The birds had talked of its mysterious appearance, too, but they had not been able to account for it.

She was quite interested, therefore, in her discovery, and was closely watching the mist spread over the valley in little soft waves of white when she heard a voice singing,—

The owl was astonished, and called out, "Who, who are you?"

The voice replied, "I am a little Cloud Maiden banished from the heavens for loving the Man in the Moon, and now I am only the Maid of the Mist. Here must I sit weaving the fog and the mist until my lover finds me. That he can never, never do, for I am locked in so tightly with rocks and stones that even his bright eye cannot enter my dark prison."

The owl, of course, was overjoyed to discover the little maiden so near, and begged her not to despair, saying, "I will get all the owls in the world to come and help me, and we will scratch under the rock until we make a tunnel for you to escape."

"Oh, thank you, kind-hearted friend," replied the Maid of the Mist. "If you can free me from this dungeon, I will be grateful to you forever."

The owl flew back to her nest, and the next day gathered all the owls in the world and told them what had happened. Gladly they began scratching a tunnel, but it was hard work. They could only work at night, fearing if they did so in the day they might be seen by the Storm King. So they were obliged to sleep all day so as to work all night, and they became so accustomed to this that from that day they never again slept at night.

At last they had a hole big enough, and the little maid squeezed her way out. What a beautiful vision she was! The owls were quite awed by her splendor, and bowed down and worshipped her then and there. No wonder the Man in the Moon wanted to marry her. Her face shone like a star, and her large eyes were clear and bright, and as blue as a flower. Her long hair hung around her in a golden cloud, while her dress was white and soft as the mist she was weaving. A bright light floated about her, and she stood out in the dark night as brilliant as the moon itself.

She thanked the owls over and over again for their kindness in setting her free, and removing the curse put upon her for her disobedience to her father, and it only remained to call the Man in the Moon to greet his love. You may be sure the owls were not long in finding him. Soon his white palace was shining brilliantly over the hills, and he was clasping the maiden in his arms. After thanking the solemn little owls for the good work they had done for him, he sailed away with his bride to get her father's consent to their marriage.

The Storm King's heart was somewhat softened at the sight of the charming pair before him, and so he consented to the wedding. But still he never quite forgave the Man in the Moon for stealing his little daughter's affections.

They had a grand wedding. The Cloud Maidens took their brooms and swept the sky clear of all the black clouds. Then they polished the stars until they shone like diamonds in a blue setting. One of the little maidens, in her excitement and pleasure at seeing her lost sister again, dropped one she was rubbing, and away it fell through the air, and with it her long trailing brush of ribbons. She was many days and weeks getting it back and placing it where it belonged. Wise men on the earth looked up and saw the falling star, and called it a comet.

The owls were the bridesmaids and the stars the witnesses for the marriage. Then the Man in the Moon and the Maid of the Mist sailed away on a fleecy white cloud, on their wedding journey to the silver mountains of the moon, and if some night you look closely you can see beside the Man in the Moon a woman's face. And the owls (awake every night since) still watch for the face of the beloved maid they saved from the dreary dungeon under the rock.

And when they see her there they rejoice, knowing she is happy and contented beside her husband. But from that day to this you will find only six stars in that shining cluster in the sky, for the seventh, as you know, is married to the Man in the Moon.