But it is always the unexpected that happens—as you will one day learn—and the Queen found that the rustling that the leaves made at her entrance had awakened the bat. "Hullo!" he said, "you there! Glad to see you. Heard from a nightingale that you’d been seen in disreputable company, going about with geese. Well, and what did you think of the world?" "Oh, it’s a very nice place when you’re used to it." "That’s what you think," the bat said. "Wait till you come to be my age. But now, tell me your adventures." "I’d better humour him," the Queen said to herself, and so she plunged into the recital. When she had finished the bat said, "H’m! and so you’re going to marry the Regent?" "I’m not going to do anything of the sort," the Queen said. And the bat asked, "Who are you going to marry, then?" The Queen answered, "No one; at least——" And the bat said, "Just so." And the Queen replied, "Don’t be stupid. Oh, and tell me how one can cure blindness with wind-flowers." The bat said, "Do you know how to make tea?" "Of course I do," the Queen answered "Well, you make an infusion of dried wind-flowers just like tea, and then you give it to the young scamp to drink." "He’s not a scamp," the Queen said; "but you’re a dear good old bat all the same." The bat said, "H’m!" The Queen rose to her feet. "Well, I must be off," she said. "I’ve got a lot to do." The bat said, "Wait a minute; I’m coming too;" and he dropped down and hung on to the Queen’s shoulder. He was rather a weight, but the Queen suffered it. "Why, there aren’t any wind-flowers left!" the Queen said, surveying the spot where they had grown. The bat said, "No; the weeds have choked them all." The Queen rubbed her chin and said nothing. And the bat merely ejaculated, "H’m!" So the Queen entered the palace. All the great halls were silent, and empty of people, and she passed through one after the other, shivering a little at their vastness. At last she came before the curtain that separated her from the Throne Hall. It was large enough to contain the whole nation. She pushed the curtain aside and found herself standing behind the great throne. Through the interstices of the carved back she could see everything that was going on. The Great Hall was thronged full of people from end to end. On the throne platform the Regent was waiting, evidently about to begin a speech. The Queen stopped and peeped; there was a great flourish of trumpets that echoed and echoed along the hall, and the Regent began. "Ladies noble, my lords, dames commoner, and gentlemen!" His great voice sounded clearly through the silence. "As you are well aware, our gracious and high mighty sovereign, the Queen Eldrida, has deigned to favour my unworthy self with the priceless honour of her hand, and that on this auspicious day. Her hand and seal affixed to the weighty document you have seen in the market-place."