, like
the water of the Dustbrook, vanishing in a golden vapour ere it reached
the floor. It came flowing from under the edge of a coronet of gold,
set with alternated pearls and emeralds. In front of the crown was a
great emerald, which looked somehow as if out of it had come the light
they had followed. There was no ornament else about her, except on her
slippers, which were one mass of gleaming emeralds, of various shades
of green, all mingling lovelily like the waving of grass in the wind
and sun. She looked about five-and-twenty years old. And for all the
difference, Curdie knew somehow or other, he could not have told how,
that the face before him was that of the old princess, Irene's
great-great-grandmother.

By this time all around them had grown light, and now first they could
see where they were. They stood in a great splendid cavern, which
Curdie recognized as that in which the goblins held their state
assemblies. But, strange to tell, the light by which they saw came
streaming, sparkling, and shooting from stones of many colours in the
sides and roof and floor of the cavern--stones of all the colours of
the rainbow, and many more. It was a glorious sight--the whole rugged
place flashing with colours--in one spot a great light of deep
carbuncular red, in another of sapphirine blue, in another of topaz
yellow; while here and there were groups of stones of all hues and
sizes, and again nebulous spaces of thousands of tiniest spots of
brilliancy of every conceivable shade. Sometimes the colours ran
together, and made a little river or lake of lambent, interfusing, and
changing tints, which, by their variegation, seemed to imitate the
flowing of water, or waves made by the wind.

Curdie would have gazed entranced, but that all the beauty of the
cavern, yes, of all he knew of the whole creation, seemed gathered in
one centre of harmony and loveliness in the person of the ancient lady
who stood before him in the very summer of beauty and strength.
Turning from the first glance at the circuadjacent splendour, it
dwindled into nothing as he looked again at the lady. Nothing flashed
or glowed or shone about her, and yet it was with a prevision of the
truth that he said,

'I was here once before, ma'am.'

'I know that, Curdie,' she replied.

'The place was full of torches, and the walls gleamed, but nothing as
they do now, and there is no light in the place.'

'You want to know where the light comes from