hless delight and expectation, it seemed once more within
reach of an outstretched hand. Then it spread and melted away as
before, and there were eyes--and a face--and a lovely form--and lo! the
whole cavern blazing with lights innumerable, and gorgeous, yet soft
and interfused--so blended, indeed, that the eye had to search and see
in order to separate distinct spots of special colour.

The moment they saw the speck in the vast distance they had risen and
stood on their feet. When it came nearer they bowed their heads. Yet
now they looked with fearless eyes, for the woman that was old yet
young was a joy to see, and filled their hearts with reverent delight.
She turned first to Peter.

'I have known you long,' she said. 'I have met you going to and from
the mine, and seen you working in it for the last forty years.'

'How should it be, madam, that a grand lady like you should take notice
of a poor man like me?' said Peter, humbly, but more foolishly than he
could then have understood.

'I am poor as well as rich,' said she. 'I, too, work for my bread, and
I show myself no favour when I pay myself my own wages. Last night
when you sat by the brook, and Curdie told you about my pigeon, and my
spinning, and wondered whether he could believe that he had actually
seen me, I heard what you said to each other. I am always about, as
the miners said the other night when they talked of me as Old Mother
Wotherwop.'

The lovely lady laughed, and her laugh was a lightning of delight in
their souls.

'Yes,' she went on, 'you have got to thank me that you are so poor,
Peter. I have seen to that, and it has done well for both you and me,
my friend. Things come to the poor that can't get in at the door of
the rich. Their money somehow blocks it up. It is a great privilege
to be poor, Peter--one that no man ever coveted, and but a very few
have sought to retain, but one that yet many have learned to prize.
You must not mistake, however, and imagine it a virtue; it is but a
privilege, and one also that, like other privileges, may be terribly
misused. Had you been rich, my Peter, you would not have been so good
as some rich men I know. And now I am going to tell you what no one
knows but myself: you, Peter, and your wife both have the blood of the
royal family in your veins. I have been trying to cultivate your
family tree, every branch of which is known to me, and I expect Curdie
to turn out a blossom on it. Therefo