The curtains themselves wavered deliciously, so that you could guess something was going on behind them. The music which made your heart tender never ceased to flow from its invisible place.
Closer and closer the children pressed, still scarcely daring to breathe, and feeling certain that their parents would not be much longer withheld from them. They were becoming more and more eager. Even the little black dog manifested the greatest excitement.
And at last Truth stepped forward purposefully and took her place just in advance of the band of children. She had never seemed more impressive. Her white dress gleamed in the bright light, and the gem in her hair was of every color one could imagine.
She began to speak.
"I very seldom make a speech," she said. "Scarcely once in a hundred years do I make a speech in public. But if you will bear with words for once, instead of deeds—upon my assurance that deeds shall immediately follow—I have this to say to you:
"It is a very great thing when children find their parents again after losing them; but the last good of all, and perhaps the greatest, is when parents find their children whom they have lost.
"You who have assembled here have found your parents at last. This I know, not because you have come here into their presence—for you must know they are behind yonder painted curtains, which we shall presently lift—but because you have learned to know the need of them, and because you have come in very truth to love them.
"We shall see now if your parents have found you."
The children caught at that saying, which seemed wholly obscure to them, and wondered what meaning could lie behind it. But in the meantime Truth had turned toward the curtains. She gazed at them one after another in an intense manner, and finally she stepped close to the one whereon the likeness of the Old Woman who lived in a shoe was painted.
In a commanding voice she cried out, "Old Woman who lived in a shoe, appear!"