aks the truth,' said
the girl, 'but that seems reason enough with some people. My mother
taught me to speak the truth, and took such pains with me that I should
find it hard to tell a lie, though I could invent many a story these
servants would believe at once; for the truth is a strange thing here,
and they don't know it when they see it. Show it them, and they all
stare as if it were a wicked lie, and that with the lie yet warm that
has just left their own mouths! You are a stranger,' she said, and
burst out weeping afresh, 'but the stranger you are to such a place and
such people the better!'

'I am the person,' said Curdie, whom you saw carrying the things from
the supper table.' He showed her the loaf. 'If you can trust, as well
as speak the truth, I will trust you. Can you trust me?'

She looked at him steadily for a moment.

'I can,' she answered.

'One thing more,' said Curdie: 'have you courage as well as truth?'

'I think so.'

'Look my dog in the face and don't cry out. Come here, Lina.'

Lina obeyed. The girl looked at her, and laid her hand on Lina's head.

'Now I know you are a true woman,' said curdie. 'I am come to set
things right in this house. Not one of the servants knows I am here.
Will you tell them tomorrow morning that, if they do not alter their
ways, and give over drinking, and lying, and stealing, and unkindness,
they shall every one of them be driven from the palace?'

'They will not believe me.'

'Most likely; but will you give them the chance?'

'I will.'

'Then I will be your friend. Wait here till I come again.'

She looked him once more in the face, and sat down.

When he reached the royal chamber, he found His Majesty awake, and very
anxiously expecting him. He received him with the utmost kindness, and
at once, as it were, put himself in his hands by telling him all he
knew concerning the state he was in. His voice was feeble, but his eye
was clear, although now and then his words and thoughts seemed to
wander. Curdie could not be certain that the cause of their not being
intelligible to him did not lie in himself. The king told him that for
some years, ever since his queen's death, he had been losing heart over
the wickedness of his people. He had tried hard to make them good, but
they got worse and worse. Evil teachers, unknown to him, had crept
into the schools; there was a general decay of truth and right
principle at least in the city; and as that s