"But what will Lootie be thinking? And what am I to say to her when she asks me where I have been?" "Don't trouble yourself about it. You will find it all come right," said her grandmother, and laid her into the blue bed, under the rosy counterpane. "There is just one thing more," said Irene. "I am a little anxious about Curdie. As I brought him into the house, I ought to have seen him safe on his way home." "I took care of all that," answered the lady. "I told you to let him go, and therefore I was bound to look after him. Nobody saw him, and he is now eating a good dinner in his mother's cottage, far up the mountain." "Then I will go to sleep," said Irene, and in a few minutes, she was fast asleep. CHAPTER XXIII CURDIE AND HIS MOTHER CURDIE went up the mountain neither whistling nor singing, for he was vexed with Irene for taking him in, as he called it; and he was vexed with himself for having spoken to her so angrily. His mother gave a cry of joy when she saw him, and at once set about getting him something to eat, asking him questions all the time, which he did not answer so cheerfully as usual. When his meal was ready, she left him to eat it, and hurried to the mine to let his father know he was safe. When she came back, she found him fast asleep upon her bed; nor did he wake until the arrival home of his father in the evening. "Now, Curdie," his mother said, as they sat at supper, "tell us the whole story from beginning to end, just as it all happened." Curdie obeyed, and told everything to the point where they came out upon the lawn in the garden of the king's house. "And what happened after that?" asked his mother. "You haven't told us all. You ought to be very happy at having got away from those demons, and instead of that, I never saw you so gloomy. There must be something more. Besides, you do not speak of that lovely child as I should like to hear you. She saved your life at the risk of her own, and yet somehow you don't seem to think much of it." "She talked such nonsense!" answered Curdie, "and told me a pack of things that weren't a bit true; and I can't get over it." "What were they?" asked his father. "Your mother may be able to throw some light upon them." Then Curdie made a clean breast of it, and told them everything. They all sat silent for some time, pondering the strange tale. At last Curdie's mother spoke. "You confess, my boy," she said, "there is something about the whole affair you do not understand?" "Yes, of course, mother," he answered, "I cannot understand how a child knowing nothing about the mountain, or even that I was shut up in it, should come all that way alone, straight to where I was; and then, after getting me out of the hole, lead me out of the mountain, too, where I should not have known a step of the way if it had been as light as in the open air."