uld be
mockery. There is no hand within yours but the hand of a true woman,
my mother.'

'I should like you just to take hold of my hand though,' said his
mother. 'You are my son, and may know all the bad there is in me.'

Then at once Curdie took her hand in his. And when he had it, he kept
it, stroking it gently with his other hand.

'Mother,' he said at length, 'your hand feels just like that of the
princess.'

'What! My horny, cracked, rheumatic old hand, with its big joints, and
its short nails all worn down to the quick with hard work--like the
hand of the beautiful princess! Why, my child, you will make me fancy
your fingers have grown very dull indeed, instead of sharp and
delicate, if you talk such nonsense. Mine is such an ugly hand I
should be ashamed to show it to any but one that loved me. But love
makes all safe--doesn't it, Curdie?'

'Well, Mother, all I can say is that I don't feel a roughness, or a
crack, or a big joint, or a short nail. Your hand feels just and
exactly, as near as I can recollect, and it's not more than two hours
since I had it in mine--well, I will say, very like indeed to that of
the old princess.'

'Go away, you flatterer,' said his mother, with a smile that showed how
she prized the love that lay beneath what she took for its hyperbole.
The praise even which one cannot accept is sweet from a true mouth.
'If that is all your new gift can do, it won't make a warlock of you,'
she added.

'Mother, it tells me nothing but the truth,' insisted Curdie, 'however
unlike the truth it may seem. It wants no gift to tell what anybody's
outside hands are like. But by it I know your inside hands are like
the princess's.'

'And I am sure the boy speaks true,' said Peter. 'He only says about
your hand what I have known ever so long about yourself, Joan. Curdie,
your mother's foot is as pretty a foot as any lady's in the land, and
where her hand is not so pretty it comes of killing its beauty for you
and me, my boy. And I can tell you more, Curdie. I don't know much
about ladies and gentlemen, but I am sure your inside mother must be a
lady, as her hand tells you, and I will try to say how I know it. This
is how: when I forget myself looking at her as she goes about her
work--and that happens often as I grow older--I fancy for a moment or
two that I am a gentleman; and when I wake up from my little dream, it
is only to feel the more strongly that I must do everything as a