This sounds like nonsense to us, but it is all right to them.
So Mopsa, thinking she had explained everything, said again:
“And, dear Jack, will you give the silver fourpence to me?”
Jack took it out; and she got down from the dame’s knee and took it in the palm of her hand, laying the other palm upon it.
“It will be very hot,” observed the dame.
“But it will not burn me so as really to hurt, if I am a real queen,” said Mopsa.
Presently she began to look as if something gave her pain.
“Oh, it’s so hot!” she said to the other Jack; “so very hot!”
“Never mind, sweet Queen,” he answered; “it will not hurt you long. Remember my poor uncle and all his knights.”
Mopsa still held the little silver coin; but Jack saw that it hurt her, for two bright tears fell from her eyes; and in another moment he saw that it was actually melted, for it fell in glittering drops from Mopsa’s hand to the marble floor, and there it lay as soft as quick-silver.