It had no windows , so it was lighted with wax candles , and the only way into it was by an underground passage , which had iron doors only twenty feet apart , and guards were posted everywhere . The Princess had been named Mayblossom , because she was as fresh and blooming as Spring itself , and she grew up tall and beautiful , and everything she did and said was charming . Every time the King and Queen came to see her they were more delighted with her than before , but though she was weary of the tower , and often begged them to take her away from it , they always refused . The Princess 's nurse , who had never left her , sometimes told her about the world outside the tower , and though the Princess had never seen anything for herself , yet she always understood exactly , thanks to the second Fairy 's gift . Often the King said to the Queen : ` We were cleverer than Carabosse after all . Our Mayblossom will be happy in spite of her predictions . ' And the Queen laughed until she was tired at the idea of having outwitted the old Fairy . They had caused the Princess 's portrait to be painted and sent to all the neighbouring Courts , for in four days she would have completed her twentieth year , and it was time to decide whom she should marry . All the town was rejoicing at the thought of the Princess 's approaching freedom , and when the news came that King Merlin was sending his ambassador to ask her in marriage for his son , they were still more delighted . The nurse , who kept the Princess informed of everything that went forward in the town , did not fail to repeat the news that so nearly concerned her , and gave such a description of the splendour in which the ambassador Fanfaronade would enter the town , that the Princess was wild to see the procession for herself . ` What an unhappy creature I am , ' she cried , ` to be shut up in this dismal tower as if I had committed some crime ! I have never seen the sun , or the stars , or a horse , or a monkey , or a lion , except in pictures , and though the King and Queen tell me I am to be set free when I am twenty , I believe they only say it to keep me amused , when they never mean to let me out at all . ' And then she began to cry , and her nurse , and the nurse 's daughter , and the cradle-rocker , and the nursery-maid , who all loved her dearly , cried too for company , so that nothing could be heard but sobs and sighs . It was a scene of woe . When the Princess saw that they all pitied her she made up her mind to have her own way . So she declared that she would starve herself to death if they did not find some means of letting her see Fanfaronade 's grand entry into the town . ` If you really love me , ' she said , ` you will manage it , somehow or other , and the King and Queen need never know anything about it . ' Then the nurse and all the others cried harder than ever , and said everything they could think of to turn the Princess from her idea . But the more they said the more determined she was , and at last they consented to make a tiny hole in the tower on the side that looked towards the city gates . After scratching and scraping all day and all night , they presently made a hole through which they could , with great difficulty , push a very slender needle , and out of this the Princess looked at the daylight for the first time .
She was so dazzled and delighted by what she saw , that there she stayed , never taking her eyes away from the peep-hole for a single minute , until presently the ambassador 's procession appeared XXXXX sight .
about because for from in of on outside so with