ide, she drove with excessive swiftness full westward for eight hours;
when (just as the sun began to have power enough to make the queen
almost faint with the heat and her former fatigue) they arrived at the
side of a shady wood; upon entering of which, the fairy made her horses
slacken in their speed, and having travelled about a mile and a half,
through rows of elms and beech trees, they came to a thick grove of
firs, into which there seemed to be no entrance. For there was not any
opening to a path, and the underwood consisting chiefly of rose-bushes,
white-thorn, eglantine, and other flowering shrubs, was so thick, that
it appeared impossible to attempt forcing through them. But alighting
out of the car (which immediately disappeared) the fairy (bidding the
queen follow her) pushed her way through a large bush of jessamine,
whose tender branches gave way for their passage and then closed again,
so as to leave no traces of an entrance into this charming grove.

Having gone a little way through an extreme narrow path, they came into
an opening (quite surrounded by these firs and sweet underwood) not very
large, but in which was contained everything that is necessary towards
making life comfortable. At the end of a green meadow was a plain neat
house, built more for convenience than beauty, fronting the rising sun;
and behind it was a small garden, stored only with fruits and useful
herbs. Sybella conducted her guests into this her simple lodging; and
as repose was the chief thing necessary for the poor fatigued queen,
she prevailed with her to lie down on a couch. Some hours' sound sleep,
which her weariness induced, gave her a fresh supply of spirits; the
ease and safety from her pursuers, in which she then found herself, made
her for a short time tolerably composed; and she begged the favour
of knowing to whom she was so greatly obliged for this her happy
deliverance; but the fairy seeing her mind too unsettled to give any
due attention to what she should say, told her that she would defer the
relation of her own life (which was worth her observation) till she had
obtained a respite from her own sorrows; and in the meantime, by all
manner of obliging ways, she endeavoured to divert and amuse her.

The queen, after a short interval of calmness of mind, occasioned only
by her so sudden escape from the terrors of pursuit, returned to her
former dejection, and for some time incessantly wept at the dismal
thought, that