The Princess and the Goblin

  CHAPTER 16

  The Ring

  The same moment her nurse came into the room, sobbing. When she sawher sitting there she started back with a loud cry of amazement andjoy. Then running to her, she caught her in her arms and covered herwith kisses.

  'My precious darling princess! where have you been? What has happenedto you? We've all been crying our eyes out, and searching the housefrom top to bottom for you.'

  'Not quite from the top,' thought Irene to herself; and she might haveadded, 'not quite to the bottom', perhaps, if she had known all. Butthe one she would not, and the other she could not say. 'Oh, Lootie!I've had such a dreadful adventure!' she replied, and told her allabout the cat with the long legs, and how she ran out upon themountain, and came back again. But she said nothing of her grandmotheror her lamp.

  'And there we've been searching for you all over the house for morethan an hour and a half!' exclaimed the nurse. 'But that's no matter,now we've got you! Only, princess, I must say,' she added, her moodchanging, 'what you ought to have done was to call for your own Lootieto come and help you, instead of running out of the house, and up themountain, in that wild, I must say, foolish fashion.'

  'Well, Lootie,' said Irene quietly, 'perhaps if you had a big cat, alllegs, running at you, you might not exactly know what was the wisestthing to do at the moment.'

  'I wouldn't run up the mountain, anyhow,' returned Lootie.

  'Not if you had time to think about it. But when those creatures cameat you that night on the mountain, you were so frightened yourself thatyou lost your way home.'

  This put a stop to Lootie's reproaches. She had been on the point ofsaying that the long-legged cat must have been a twilight fancy of theprincess's, but the memory of the horrors of that night, and of thetalking-to which the king had given her in consequence, prevented herfrom saying what after all she did not half believe--having a strongsuspicion that the cat was a goblin; for she knew nothing of thedifference between the goblins and their creatures: she counted themall just goblins.

  Without another word she went and got some fresh tea and bread andbutter for the princess. Before she returned, the whole household,headed by the housekeeper, burst into the nursery to exult over theirdarling. The gentlemen-at-arms followed, and were ready enough tobelieve all she told them about the long-legged cat. Indeed, thoughwise enough to say nothing about it, they remembered, with no littlehorror, just such a creature amongst those they had surprised at theirgambols upon the princess's lawn.

  In their own hearts they blamed themselves for not having kept betterwatch. And their captain gave orders that from this night the frontdoor and all the windows on the ground floor should be lockedimmediately the sun set, and opened after upon no pretence whatever.The men-at-arms redoubled their vigilance, and for some time there wasno further cause of alarm.

  When the princess woke the next morning, her nurse was bending overher. 'How your ring does glow this morning, princess!--just like afiery rose!' she said.

  'Does it, Lootie?' returned Irene. 'Who gave me the ring, Lootie? Iknow I've had it a long time, but where did I get it? I don'tremember.'

  'I think it must have been your mother gave it you, princess; butreally, for as long as you have worn it, I don't remember that ever Iheard,' answered her nurse.

  'I will ask my king-papa the next time he comes,' said Irene.