The Queen said, "Thank you. I should be very glad; but—but—" as the thought struck her, "I shan’t be able to pay you, you know." The ploughman laughed. "Now I see you are a stranger," he said. "But yet I have seldom had strangers pass here that offered to help me." The Queen said, "Yes, but it is so nice to be of use to any one;" and seeing that he was engaged in unbuckling the horse from the plough on the right side, she did as much for the one on the left. The ploughman said, "Now, can you ride?" "Well, I’ve never tried, but I dare say I could if they didn’t go _too_ fast." "No, I don’t think they’ll go fast," he said. "Here, let me lift you on. There, catch hold of the horns of the collar." And in a moment the Queen was seated sideways on the great horse. The ploughman made his way to the horse’s head and led it down the valley again. The other horse went quietly along by the side of them. "How delicious everything looks in the owl-light!" the Queen said. And the ploughman sighed. "I—I can’t see it." he said. "I can’t see anything. I’m blind." The Queen said, "Blind! Why, I should never have known it. You are as skilful as any one else." The ploughman answered, "Oh yes, I can manage pretty well because I’m used to it, and there are many ways of managing things; but it is an affliction." The horses went carefully down the hill, and in a little space they had reached the valley whence the Queen had started. It was now quite dark there, and the harvest moon had not yet arisen, but at no great distance from them the Queen could see a light winking. So the horses plodded along, stopping now and again to crop a mouthful of grass or drink a draught from the tinkling rill, whose sound had grown loud in the twilight silence. In a very short while they had come to where a little farmhouse lay in the bottom of the valley among trees, that looked black in the starlight. The ploughman called, "Mother, I’m bringing a visitor." And a little old woman came to the door. "Welcome!" she said, and added, "My dear," when the Queen came into sight in the light that fell through the open door. The Queen slipped down from the horse and went into the door with the little old woman, whilst the ploughman disappeared with the horses. "She really is a dear little old woman," the Queen said to herself—"very different from old Mrs. Hexer." And so indeed she was—quite a little woman in comparison with her stalwart son, with white hair and a rosy face and eyes not at all age-dimmed, but blue as the cornflower or as a summer sky, and looking, like a child’s, so gentle that a hard word would make them wince. She put a chair ready for the Queen by the fireside, and then, on the white wood table, set out forks and knives for her. "You must be tired," she said kindly; "but we go to bed soon after supper, and so you will have a good rest." The Queen said, "Yes, I am a little tired; and it is very kind of you to let me stop."