I stopped, and turned round, and got ready, and I bound the handkerchief
tightly round my eyes, and made quite sure that I could not see at all,
not a twig, nor the end of a leaf, nor the light of the sky, as it was
an old red silk handkerchief with large yellow spots, that went round
twice and covered my eyes, so that I could see nothing. Then I began to
go on, step by step, very slowly. My heart beat faster and faster, and
something rose in my throat that choked me and made me want to cry out,
but I shut my lips, and went on. Boughs caught in my hair as I went, and
great thorns tore me; but I went on to the end of the path. Then I
stopped, and held out my arms and bowed, and I went round the first
time, feeling with my hands, and there was nothing. I went round the
second time, feeling with my hands, and there was nothing. Then I went
round the third time, feeling with my hands, and the story was all true,
and I wished that the years were gone by, and that I had not so long a
time to wait before I was happy for ever and ever.

Nurse must have been a prophet like those we read of in the Bible.
Everything that she said began to come true, and since then other things
that she told me of have happened. That was how I came to know that her
stories were true and that I had not made up the secret myself out of my
own head. But there was another thing that happened that day. I went a
second time to the secret place. It was at the deep brimming well, and
when I was standing on the moss I bent over and looked in, and then I
knew who the white lady was that I had seen come out of the water in the
wood long ago when I was quite little. And I trembled all over, because
that told me other things. Then I remembered how sometime after I had
seen the white people in the wood, nurse asked me more about them, and I
told her all over again, and she listened, and said nothing for a long,
long time, and at last she said, 'You will see her again.' So I
understood what had happened and what was to happen. And I understood
about the nymphs; how I might meet them in all kinds of places, and they
would always help me, and I must always look for them, and find them in
all sorts of strange shapes and appearances. And without the nymphs I
could never have found the secret, and without them none of the other
things could happen. Nurse had told me all about them long ago, but she
called them by another name, and I did not know what she meant, or what