CHAPTER 11, part 4
'Oh, grandmother! it is so nice!' said Irene. 'Thank you; thank you.' Then the old lady went to a chest of drawers, and took out a large handkerchief of gossamer-like cambric, which she tied round her hand.
'I don't think I can let you go away tonight,' she said. 'Would you like to sleep with me?' 'Oh, yes, yes, dear grandmother,' said Irene, and would have clapped her hands, forgetting that she could not. 'You won't be afraid, then, to go to bed with such an old woman?' 'No. You are so beautiful, grandmother.' 'But I am very old.' 'And I suppose I am very young. You won't mind sleeping with such a very young woman, grandmother?' 'You sweet little pertness!' said the old lady, and drew her towards her, and kissed her on the forehead and the cheek and the mouth. Then she got a large silver basin, and having poured some water into it made Irene sit on the chair, and washed her feet. This done, she was ready for bed. And oh, what a delicious bed it was into which her grandmother laid her! She hardly could have told she was lying upon anything: she felt nothing but the softness.
The old lady having undressed herself lay down beside her.
'Why don't you put out your moon?' asked the princess.
'That never goes out, night or day,' she answered. 'In the darkest night, if any of my pigeons are out on a message, they always see my moon and know where to fly to.' 'But if somebody besides the pigeons were to see it--somebody about the house, I mean--they would come to look what it was and find you.' 'The better for them, then,' said the old lady. 'But it does not happen above five times in a hundred years that anyone does see it. The greater part of those who do take it for a meteor, wink their eyes, and forget it again. Besides, nobody could find the room except I pleased. Besides, again--I will tell you a secret--if that light were to go out you would fancy yourself lying in a bare garret, on a heap of old straw, and would not see one of the pleasant things round about you all the time.'
