"How do you know I don't go away while you are asleep?"
"I never thought of that," said Grace. "But please tell me, where is the Magic Cabinet now?"
The old priest was busy attending to the sails of the boat, which was now shooting swiftly away from the shore; but at the question he looked up and pointed towards the top of the steps with his golden wand.
Grace looked and saw a lovely little temple built of inlaid coloured marbles.
"Is that really the back of our dear old black cabinet?" she cried. "How pretty it is! I wonder why we have never found it out."
"Everything has two sides," said the old man, "and one is always more beautiful than the other; and, strange to say, the best side is generally hidden. It can always be found if people wish for it; but as a rule they don't care to take the trouble."
Grace looked very earnestly into the priest's face while he spoke; and after he had finished she was so long silent that at last he asked, "What are you thinking about?"
"I was thinking about your face," she answered. "You won't think me rude, will you?"
"No, certainly not."
"Well, of course, you are just my dear old Indian priest, with the strange, dark face and nice white beard, exactly like I have always known you, only ever so much bigger and taller; and I'm sure that long wand is much finer than the little gold bar you generally hold; but I can't help thinking you are just a little like my mother's Uncle Jacob, who left us the Magic Cabinet. I have often looked at him in the album, and your eyes have a look in them like his. You don't mind, do you?"