oo bad! She
might have had some old woman there at least to pass for her precious
grandmother!'

'Didn't she speak as if she saw those other things herself, Curdie?'

'Yes. That's what bothers me. You would have thought she really meant
and believed that she saw every one of the things she talked about.
And not one of them there! It was too bad, I say.'

'Perhaps some people can see things other people can't see, Curdie,'
said his mother very gravely. 'I think I will tell you something I saw
myself once--only Perhaps You won't believe me either!'

'Oh, mother, mother!' cried Curdie, bursting into tears; 'I don't
deserve that, surely!'

'But what I am going to tell you is very strange,' persisted his
mother; 'and if having heard it you were to say I must have been
dreaming, I don't know that I should have any right to be vexed with
you, though I know at least that I was not asleep.'

'Do tell me, mother. Perhaps it will help me to think better of the
princess.'

'That's why I am tempted to tell you,' replied his mother. 'But first,
I may as well mention that, according to old whispers, there is
something more than common about the king's family; and the queen was
of the same blood, for they were cousins of some degree. There were
strange stories told concerning them--all good stories--but strange,
very strange. What they were I cannot tell, for I only remember the
faces of my grandmother and my mother as they talked together about
them. There was wonder and awe--not fear--in their eyes, and they
whispered, and never spoke aloud. But what I saw myself was this: Your
father was going to work in the mine one night, and I had been down
with his supper. It was soon after we were married, and not very long
before you were born. He came with me to the mouth of the mine, and
left me to go home alone, for I knew the way almost as well as the
floor of our own cottage. It was pretty dark, and in some parts of the
road where the rocks overhung nearly quite dark. But I got along
perfectly well, never thinking of being afraid, until I reached a spot
you know well enough, Curdie, where the path has to make a sharp turn
out of the way of a great rock on the left-hand side. When I got
there, I was suddenly surrounded by about half a dozen of the cobs, the
first I had ever seen, although I had heard tell of them often enough.
One of them blocked up the path, and they all began tormenting and
teasing me in a way it