The man stopped his team for a moment, and looked towards her. Against the glow of the sky she could not make out his face; but he seemed to smile.

"No, friend," he said. "I have all but finished my day\'s work; but, if you will lead the horses up the furrow, they may go straighter than I can drive them."

So the Queen went to the horses\' heads, and took one of them by the bridle, and the great beasts stretched to the work. And the Queen felt a new happiness come over her, at the thought that she was of use in the world.

The sun set as they came to the edge of the field. The plougher stretched his arms abroad, and then came to the horses\' heads.

"Thank you, friend," he said to the Queen. He did not look at her, but kept his eyes downcast on the ground with a strangely distant appearance in them. "Will you not come home and sup with us? It is hardly a hundred yards to the farm, and the nearest place to here is several miles onwards."

The Queen said, "Thank you. I should be very glad; but—but—" as the thought struck her, "I shan\'t be able to pay you, you know."

The ploughman laughed. "Now I see you are a stranger," he said. "But yet I have seldom had strangers pass here that offered to help me."

The Queen said, "Yes, but it is so nice to be of use to any one;" and seeing that he was engaged in unbuckling the horse from the plough on the right side, she did as much for the one on the left.

The ploughman said, "Now, can you ride?"

"Well, I\'ve never tried, but I dare say I could if they didn\'t go too fast."

"No, I don\'t think they\'ll go fast," he said. "Here, let me lift you on. There, catch hold of the horns of the collar."

And in a moment the Queen was seated sideways on the great horse. The ploughman made his way to the horse\'s head and led it down the valley again. The other horse went quietly along by the side of them.

"How delicious everything looks in the owl-light!" the Queen said.

And the ploughman sighed. "I—I can\'t see it." he said. "I can\'t see anything. I\'m blind."

The Queen said, "Blind! Why, I should never have known it. You are as skilful as any one else."

The ploughman answered, "Oh yes, I can manage pretty well because I\'m used to it, and there are many ways of managing things; but it is an affliction."

The horses went carefully down the hill, and in a little space they had reached the valley whence the Queen had started. It was now quite dark there, and the harvest moon had not yet arisen, but at no great distance from them the Queen could see a light winking.

So the horses plodded along, stopping now and again to crop a mouthful of grass or drink a draught from the tinkling rill, whose sound had grown loud in the twilight silence. In a very short while they had come to where a little farmhouse lay in the bottom of the valley among trees, that looked black in the starlight.

The ploughman called, "Mother, I\'m bringing a visitor."

And a little old woman came to the door. "Welcome!" she said, and added, "My dear," when the Queen came into sight in the light that fell through the open door.

The Queen slipped down from the horse and went into the door with the little old woman, whilst the ploughman disappeared with the horses.

"She really is a dear little old woman," the Queen said to herself—"very different from old Mrs. Hexer."

And so indeed she was—quite a little woman in comparison with her stalwart son, with white hair and a rosy face and eyes not at all age-dimmed, but blue as the cornflower or as a summer sky, and looking, like a child\'s, so gentle that a hard word would make them wince.

She put a chair ready for the Queen by the fireside, and then, on the white wood table, set out forks and knives for her.

"You must be tired," she said kindly; "but we go to bed soon after supper, and so you will have a good rest."

The Queen said, "Yes, I am a little tired; and it is very kind of you to let me stop."

The little old woman looked at her with an odd, amused look in her gentle eyes.

"Now I see you are a stranger," she said

"Yes, I come from a long way off," the Queen said. "At least I suppose it is a great way off, for it has taken me a long time to get here."

At that moment the ploughman came in, with the heavy step of a tired man.

"Mother, mother!" he said gaily; "I\'m hungry."

"Son, son," she answered, "I am glad to hear it. There will be plenty."

And so the supper was made ready, and heartily glad the Queen was, for she was as hungry as the ploughman.

And they had the whitest of floury potatoes, in the whitest of white wooden bowls, and the sweetest of new milk, and the clearest of honey overrunning the comb, and junket laid on rushes, and plums, and apples, and apricots. And be certain that the Queen enjoyed it.

And, when it was finished, they drew their chairs round the fire, and the ploughman said, addressing the Queen—

"Now, friend, since you have travelled far, tell us something of what may have befallen you on the way, for we are such stay-at-home folk here, that we know little of the world around. But perhaps you are tired and would rather go to bed."

But the Queen said, "Oh no, I am very well rested now, and I will gladly tell you my story—only first tell me where I am."

"This is the farm of Woodward, from which we take our names, my mother and I, and we are some ten miles from the Narrow Seas."

"But what is the land called, and who rules it?" the Queen said.

The ploughman laughed. "Why, it is called the land of the Happy Folk; and as for who rules it, why, just nobody, because it gets along very well as it is."

The Queen leant back in the great chair they had given her. She rubbed her chin reflectively and looked at the fire.

"The Regent told me that a country couldn\'t possibly exist without a King or Queen," she said.

"Who is the Regent?" the ploughman said. He too kept his face to the fire that he could not see.

"Oh, well, he\'s just the Regent of my kingdom. But I forgot you didn\'t know. I am Eldrida, Queen of the Narrowlands and all the Isles."

The little old woman looked at her interestedly.

And the ploughman said, "After all, you\'re not so very far from your home; because one can see the coast of it quite plainly on a clear day from our shore, so they say."

"Why, then you must have quite a number of people from there?" the Queen said.

But the ploughman answered, "No, hardly ever any one, because the seas run so swiftly through the straights that no boat can live in them—so people would have to come a long way round by land. Besides, they\'ve got everything that we\'ve got, so what could they want here?" the ploughman said, and added slily, "all except one thing, that is."

"Why, what is that?" the Queen asked.

And the ploughman answered, "Why, the Queen, of course; because we have got her."

But the little old woman held her hand to shield her eyes from the fire\'s blaze, and looked across at the Queen.

"I shouldn\'t think it was a very nice country to live in," she said.

The Queen asked, "Why?"

"Well, one evening when we were down by the sea, we saw the whole sky lit up over there, and, later, we heard from a traveller, that the people had set fire to the town when they were fighting about who was to be Regent."

"Yes, I\'m afraid they are rather fond of doing that; but I didn\'t know anything about it."

"How was that?" the ploughman said.

And in reply, the Queen told them her story, to which they listened very attentively, and hardly interrupted at all to ask questions.

And so, it being finished, the little old woman took the Queen up to bed in a little room under the eaves, and, bidding her a kind good night, left her.

The Queen\'s window looked out down the valley, and she could, as she undressed, see the moon shining placidly along it, gleaming on the dew mist, and glancing here and there on the waters of the little stream where its zigzag course caught the light.

There was never a sound save the tinkle of the brook or the dull noise of a horse that moved its feet in the stable.

So the Queen fell asleep, and did not awaken till the sun was high in the sky.

She rubbed her eyes and could not quite make out where she was at first. She missed the noise of the geese, to which she had been used to awaken. But gradually it all came back to her, and for a while she lay and watched the roses that were peeping in at the window and nodding in the morning breeze.

"Come, this will never do!" the Queen said to herself. "Whatever will they think of me?" So she arose from between the warm, clean sheets, and, having dressed herself, went downstairs. There she found the little old woman busy in the kitchen.

"Good morning, my dear," she said.

And the Queen answered, "Good morning, mother."

And the little old woman\'s eyes smiled her pleasure. "I didn\'t wish to wake you," she said, "you seemed so tired last night. My son has gone off to his ploughing; but you will see him as you pass the hill, and he will guide you a little on your way, if you have to go further." The little old woman\'s eyes looked quite wistful. "We wish you would stay a little while with us; we should like it so much."

"Why, of course I will," the Queen said; "that is, if I can be of any use to you."

"Oh yes, you can be of use," the little old woman said. "But it is such a pleasure for us to have guests, for we like to talk with them, and we like to please them as much as may be. But here is your breakfast; you must be quite hungry. And afterwards—after to-day, that is—my son will show you all about the farm. Only to-day he wants to finish his ploughing, and I am too old to go very far up the hills."

"It is wonderful how your son manages to work as he does," the Queen said.

And the little old woman\'s eyes looked proud and happy.

"He has lived all his life here, you see When he was quite a baby a flash of lightning blinded him; but now he knows his way everywhere about, and he can do almost all the farm-work. Sometimes he has a boy to help him; but just now, they\'re harvesting at our neighbour\'s, and the boy has gone down to help. But it makes my son rather slow in his ploughing, for he has to guide himself by feeling with his feet the last furrow he has made."

"Oh, I could lead the horses for him," the Queen said.

And the mother answered, "Yes, do, my dear; and you can take your dinner out with you. His dog always fetches his for him."

So the Queen finished her breakfast, and then s............