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.