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36 THE PRINCESS AND CURDIE.
only you know what to make of a thing, you'll know soon enough what to think of it Now I needn't tell you, surely, Curdie, what you've got to do with this?"
"I suppose you mean, mother," answered Curdie, " that I must do as the old lady told me ? "
" That is what I mean: what else could it be ? Am I not right, Peter ? "
" Quite right, Joan," answered Peter, " so far as my judgment goes. It is a very strange story, but you see the question is not about believing it, for Curdie knows what came to him."
And you remember, Curdie," said his mother, "that wnen the princess took you up that tower once before, and there talked to her great-great-grandmother, you came home quite angry with her, and said there was nothing in the place but an old tub, a heap of straw— oh, I remember your inventory quite well!—an old tub, a heap of straw, a withered apple, and a sunbeam. According to your eyes, that was all there was in the great old musty garret. But now you have had a glimpse of the old princess herself!"
" Yes, mother, I did see her—or if I didn't,—" said Curdie very thoughtfully—then began again. "The hardest thing to believe, though I saw it with my own eyes, was when the thin, filmy creature, that seemed |
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