On a Pincushion by Mary de Morgan

The Sun was shining brightly one hot summer day, and a little Sunbeam slid down his long golden ladder, and crept unperceived under the leaves of a large tree. All the Sunbeams are in reality tiny Sun-fairies, run down to earth on golden ladders, which look to mortals like rays of the Sun. When they see a cloud coming they climb their ladders in an instant, and draw them up after them into the Sun. The Sun is ruled by a mighty fairy, who every morning tells his tiny servants, the beams, where they are to shine, and every evening counts them on their return, to see he has the right number. It is not known, but the Sun and Moon are enemies, and that is why they never shine at the same time. The fairy of the Moon is a woman, and all her beams are tiny women, who come down on the loveliest little ladders, like threads of silver. No one knows why the Sun and Moon quarrelled. Once they were very good friends. Some say it is because the Sun wished to marry her, and she did not like him, but preferred a sea king, for whose sake she always keeps near the world. Others think it is because of a piece of land which the Moon claimed as her own, and on which the Sun one day shone so strongly that he dried up and killed all the plants and grass there, which offended the Moon very much. Anyhow, it remains that they are bitter enemies, and the Sunbeams and Moonbeams may not play together.

On the day on which my story begins, the Sunbeam about whom I am going to tell you crept into a tree, and sat down near a Bullfinch's nest, and watched the Bullfinch and its mate.