He was afraid to open it without first knocking. He knocked, but heard no answer. He was answered nevertheless; for the door gently opened, and there was a narrow stair--and so steep that, big lad as he was, he too, like the Princess Irene before him, found his hands needful for the climbing. And it was a long climb, but he reached the top at last--a little landing, with a door in front and one on each side. Which should he knock at? As he hesitated, he heard the noise of a spinning-wheel. He knew it at once, because his mother's spinning-wheel had been his governess long ago, and still taught him things. It was the spinning-wheel that first taught him to make verses, and to sing, and to think whether all was right inside him; or at least it had helped him in all these things. Hence it was no wonder he should know a spinning-wheel when he heard it sing--even although as the bird of paradise to other birds was the song of that wheel to the song of his mother's. He stood listening so entranced that he forgot to knock, and the wheel went on and on, spinning in his brain songs and tales and rhymes, till he was almost asleep as well as dreaming, for sleep does not _always_ come first. But suddenly came the thought of the poor bird, which had been lying motionless in his hand all the time, and that woke him up, and at once he knocked. "Come in, Curdie," said a voice. Curdie shook. It was getting rather awful. The heart that had never much heeded an army of goblins, trembled at the soft word of invitation. But then there was the red-spotted white thing in his hand! He dared not hesitate, though. Gently he opened the door through which the sound came, and what did he see? Nothing at first--except indeed a great sloping shaft of moonlight, that came in at a high window, and rested on the floor. He stood and stared at it, forgetting to shut the door. "Why don't you come in, Curdie?" said the voice. "Did you never see moonlight before?" "Never without a moon," answered Curdie, in a trembling tone, but gathering courage. "Certainly not," returned the voice, which was thin and quavering: "_I_ never saw moonlight without a moon." "But there's no moon outside," said Curdie. "Ah! but you're inside now," said the voice. The answer did not satisfy Curdie; but the voice went on. "There are more moons than you know of, Curdie. Where there is one sun there are many moons--and of many sorts. Come in and look out of my window, and you will soon satisfy yourself that there is a moon looking in at it." The gentleness of the voice made Curdie remember his manners. He shut the door, and drew a step or two nearer to the moonlight.