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.