The little old woman looked at her with an odd, amused look in her gentle eyes. "Now I see you are a stranger," she said "Yes, I come from a long way off," the Queen said. "At least I suppose it is a great way off, for it has taken me a long time to get here." At that moment the ploughman came in, with the heavy step of a tired man. "Mother, mother!" he said gaily; "I’m hungry." "Son, son," she answered, "I am glad to hear it. There will be plenty." And so the supper was made ready, and heartily glad the Queen was, for she was as hungry as the ploughman. And they had the whitest of floury potatoes, in the whitest of white wooden bowls, and the sweetest of new milk, and the clearest of honey overrunning the comb, and junket laid on rushes, and plums, and apples, and apricots. And be certain that the Queen enjoyed it. And, when it was finished, they drew their chairs round the fire, and the ploughman said, addressing the Queen— "Now, friend, since you have travelled far, tell us something of what may have befallen you on the way, for we are such stay-at-home folk here, that we know little of the world around. But perhaps you are tired and would rather go to bed." But the Queen said, "Oh no, I am very well rested now, and I will gladly tell you my story—only first tell me where I am." "This is the farm of Woodward, from which we take our names, my mother and I, and we are some ten miles from the Narrow Seas." "But what is the land called, and who rules it?" the Queen said. The ploughman laughed. "Why, it is called the land of the Happy Folk; and as for who rules it, why, just nobody, because it gets along very well as it is." The Queen leant back in the great chair they had given her. She rubbed her chin reflectively and looked at the fire. "The Regent told me that a country couldn’t possibly exist without a King or Queen," she said. "Who is the Regent?" the ploughman said. He too kept his face to the fire that he could not see. "Oh, well, he’s just the Regent of my kingdom. But I forgot you didn’t know. I am Eldrida, Queen of the Narrowlands and all the Isles." The little old woman looked at her interestedly. And the ploughman said, "After all, you’re not so _very_ far from your home; because one can see the coast of it quite plainly on a clear day from our shore, so they say." "Why, then you must have quite a number of people from there?" the Queen said. But the ploughman answered, "No, hardly ever any one, because the seas run so swiftly through the straights that no boat can live in them—so people would have to come a long way round by land. Besides, they’ve got everything that we’ve got, so what could they want here?" the ploughman said, and added slily, "all except one thing, that is." "Why, what is that?" the Queen asked. And the ploughman answered, "Why, the Queen, of course; because we have got her."