ere. It was so much nicer
to have somebody to talk to than to lie awake in bed with the burning
pain in her hand. She opened the door very gently and went through the
nursery, which did not look into the garden, to go to the other window.
But when she came to the foot of the old staircase there was the moon
shining down from some window high up, and making the worm-eaten oak
look very strange and delicate and lovely. In a moment she was putting
her little feet one after the other in the silvery path up the stair,
looking behind as she went, to see the shadow they made in the middle
of the silver. Some little girls would have been afraid to find
themselves thus alone in the middle of the night, but Irene was a
princess.

As she went slowly up the stair, not quite sure that she was not
dreaming, suddenly a great longing woke up in her heart to try once
more whether she could not find the old lady with the silvery hair. 'If
she is a dream,' she said to herself, 'then I am the likelier to find
her, if I am dreaming.'

So up and up she went, stair after stair, until she Came to the many
rooms--all just as she had seen them before. Through passage after
passage she softly sped, comforting herself that if she should lose her
way it would not matter much, because when she woke she would find
herself in her own bed with Lootie not far off. But, as if she had
known every step of the way, she walked straight to the door at the
foot of the narrow stair that led to the tower.

'What if I should realreality-really find my beautiful old grandmother
up there!' she said to herself as she crept up the steep steps.

When she reached the top she stood a moment listening in the dark, for
there was no moon there. Yes! it was! it was the hum of the
spinning-wheel! What a diligent grandmother to work both day and
night! She tapped gently at the door.

'Come in, Irene,'said the sweet voice.

The princess opened the door and entered. There was the moonlight
streaming in at the window, and in the middle of the moonlight sat the
old lady in her black dress with the white lace, and her silvery hair
mingling with the moonlight, so that you could not have told which was
which. 'Come in, Irene,' she said again. 'Can you tell me what I am
spinning?'

'She speaks,' thought Irene, 'just as if she had seen me five minutes
ago, or yesterday at the farthest. --No,' she answered; 'I don't know
what you are spinning. Please, I thought you