'I see you know me, Curdie,' said a voice.

'if your eyes are you, ma'am, then I know you,' said Curdie. 'But
I never saw your face before.'

'Yes, you have seen it, Curdie,' said the voice. And with that the
darkness of its complexion melted away, and down from the face
dawned out the form that belonged to it, until at last Curdie and
his father beheld a lady, beautiful exceedingly, dressed in
something pale green, like velvet, over which her hair fell in
cataracts of a rich golden colour. it looked as if it were pouring
down from her head, and, like the water of the Dustbrook, vanishing
in a golden vapour ere it reached the floor. It came flowing from
under the edge of a coronet of gold, set with alternated pearls and
emeralds. In front of the crown was a great emerald, which looked
somehow as if out of it had come the light they had followed.
There was no ornament else about her, except on her slippers, which
were one mass of gleaming emeralds, of various shades of green, all
mingling lovelily like the waving of grass in the wind and sun.
She looked about five-and-twenty years old. And for all the
difference, Curdie knew somehow or other, he could not have told
how, that the face before him was that of the old princess, Irene's
great-great-grandmother.

By this time all around them had grown light, and now first they
could see where they were. They stood in a great splendid cavern,
which Curdie recognized as that in which the goblins held their
state assemblies. But, strange to tell, the light by which they
saw came streaming, sparkling, and shooting from stones of many
colours in the sides and roof and floor of the cavern - stones of