heads. Yet now they looked with fearless eyes, for the woman that
was old yet young was a joy to see, and filled their hearts with
reverent delight. She turned first to Peter.

'I have known you long,' she said. 'I have met you going to and
from the mine, and seen you working in it for the last forty
years.'

'How should it be, madam, that a grand lady like you should take
notice of a poor man like me?' said Peter, humbly,

but more foolishly than he could then have understood.

'I am poor as well as rich,' said she. 'I, too, work for my bread,
and I show myself no favour when I pay myself my own wages. Last
night when you sat by the brook, and Curdie told you about my
pigeon, and my spinning, and wondered whether he could believe that
he had actually seen me, I heard what you said to each other. I am
always about, as the miners said the other night when they talked
of me as Old Mother Wotherwop.'

The lovely lady laughed, and her laugh was a lightning of delight
in their souls.

'Yes,' she went on, 'you have got to thank me that you are so poor,
Peter. I have seen to that, and it has done well for both you and
me, my friend. Things come to the poor that can't get in at the
door of the rich. Their money somehow blocks it up. It is a great
privilege to be poor, Peter - one that no man ever coveted, and but
a very few have sought to retain, but one that yet many have