all room. So he
thought when he first looked at it, but as he gazed, the room seemed
to get bigger and bigger, and the fireplace to get farther and farther
away, until he felt that he was in a vast cavern cut deep into the
mountainside. He rubbed his eyes, and there he was in the small
kitchen again and the cauldron was sending out a savoury smell.

"There'll be something in it for all tastes," went on the old woman,
"even for Prince Udo's."

"I'm not so particular as all that," said Udo mildly. The room had
just become five hundred yards long again, and he was feeling quiet.

"Not now, but you will be."

She filled them a plate each from the pot; and pulling their chairs up
to the table, they fell to heartily.

"This is really excellent," said Udo, as he put down his spoon and
rested for a moment.

"You'd think you'd always like that, wouldn't you?" she said.

"I always shall be fond of anything so perfectly cooked."

"Ah," remarked the old woman thoughtfully.

Udo was beginning to dislike her particular style of conversation. It
seemed to carry the merest suggestion of a hint that something
unpleasant was going to happen to him. Nothing apparently was going
to happen to Coronel. He tried to drag Coronel into the conversation
in case the old woman had anything over for him.

"My friend and I," he said, "hope to be in Euralia the day after
to-morrow."

"No harm in hoping," was the answer.

"Dear me, is something going to happen to us on the way?"

"Depends what you call 'us.'"

Coronel pushed back his chair and got up.

"I know what's going to happen to me," he said. "I'm going to sleep."

"Well," said Udo, getting up too, "we've got a long day before us
to-morrow, and apparently we are in for an adventure--er, _we_ are in
for an adventure of some sort." He looked anxiously at the old woman,
but she made no sign. "And so let's to bed."

"This way," said the old woman, and by the light of a candle she led
them upstairs.

* * * * *

Udo slept badly. He had a feeling (just as you have) that something
was going to happen to him; and it was with some surprise that he woke
up in the morning to find himself much as he was when he went to bed.
He looked at himself in the glass; he invited Coronel to gaze at him;
but neither could discover that anything was the matter.

"After all," said Udo, "I don't suppose she meant anything. These old
women get into a way of talking like that. If an