"So here you are at last!" said a voice from somewhere, so suddenly that it made George jump.
He looked round on every side, but for a long time could see nothing. At last, in the dim light, he could just make out what looked like the figure of an old, old woman with a very crooked back and a queer, wrinkled face. She was sitting in a dark corner in a high-backed chair, looking into the fire as if she were reading all kinds of stories in it.
"Come here, George," she said. "Tell me all about your fortune."
It was really rather annoying that everybody seemed to know all about George and what he was going to do. However, it couldn't be helped, so he walked up to the witch, feeling just a little bit afraid, and looked straight into her eyes.
Her face was covered with hundreds of little wrinkles, which crossed and recrossed one another almost without end. She looked as if she had lived for hundreds and hundreds of years, and was, oh, so tired of everything! Her eyes were very bright, and shone with a pale light which made George feel a little bit giddy at first, though he couldn't think why.
Her voice was quite gentle, rather sad, and sounded as if it came from far, far, away. Perhaps it had grown tired too.
"So you are following your fortune?" said the witch. "Dear me! Do you know who I am?"
"Please, ma'am," replied George, "you're a witch."
"And a very wicked old woman too, who turns little boys into frogs and toads, and flies through the air on a broomstick. Isn't that what you've learned about me?" asked the witch, with a queer smile. Where had George seen that smile before?
He blushed rosy red, for he certainly had always heard that witches were wicked women. Had not Father once called some old woman who was always telling disagreeable stories about other people behind their backs a wicked witch? George had asked this same old woman if she had brought her broomstick with her. She had been quite cross, and called him "a rude little boy."