“I did not know anybody could be so beautiful,” cried Silverboy honestly. Silvergirl slipped up beside her, and the Moon Lady took her little brown hand in her own and began to laugh from pure pleasure and merriment. “Come in,” she cried, “come in. I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you were coming. It’s hard to keep secrets from the Moon Lady. Secrets are such nice things to laugh at, don’t you think so?” she called to Silverboy; and in a minute she had his hand, too, and was leading both the children into the palace and up the broad marble stairs. “Now,” she said, “I have one room full of candy, and another full of toys, and another full of brooks to sail boats in, and another full of ponies for children to ride, and another full of pretty gardens to play in, and--” “But how can there be gardens and brooks in a room in a house?” asked Silvergirl, gazing at her with great wondering eyes. The Moon Lady looked amused. “Because this is a Wonder Palace,” she said at last. “Don’t you know that in a Wonder Palace one can have whatever she likes? You like gardens to play in, I am sure of that, and so there are gardens in one of my rooms. You like ponies, and so there are ponies here. I don’t see anything strange about it,” and she laughed so merrily that the children could not help laughing with her. They went to the candy room and the toy room and the brook room and the pony room and the others. These were all so delightful that when the Moon Lady asked which they liked best, they could not choose. “That is no matter,” she declared, “for you must stay here with me forever and always, and there will be new rooms for you every day, and each one will be full of finer things than you ever saw before.” “Oh!” cried the children, “but we must not. We must go on and find a silver door for the father and the mother.” “What’s that about a silver door?” asked the Moon Lady. “A wizard told me something about a silver door once, but I don’t know what he meant. He said:-- When the silver door flies open, Then the iron door shuts tight. Silver cheats you in the moonbeams, Iron is honest in the light.” “Was the wizard a squirrel, dear Moon Lady?” the children asked. “I forget,” she replied, “it was so long ago; but it was a good thing to laugh at,” and again she laughed so lightly and musically that the children fancied they heard a summer shower falling upon the leaves. “Have you seen a wizard, too?” she asked; “and has he told you about a silver door? Come into the room that is full of all the music of all the world and tell me about it.”