It
ran out babbling joyously, but she had to go in.
She did not hesitate. Right into the hole she went, which was high
enough to let her walk without stooping. For a little way there
was a brown glimmer, but at the first turn it all but ceased, and
before she had gone many paces she was in total darkness. Then she
began to be frightened indeed. Every moment she kept feeling the
thread backwards and forwards, and as she went farther and farther
into the darkness of the great hollow mountain, she kept thinking
more and more about her grandmother, and all that she had said to
her, and how kind she had been, and how beautiful she was, and all
about her lovely room, and the fire of roses, and the great lamp
that sent its light through stone walls. And she became more and
more sure that the thread could not have gone there of itself, and
that her grandmother must have sent it. But it tried her
dreadfully when the path went down very steep, and especially When
she came to places where she had to go down rough stairs, and even
sometimes a ladder. Through one narrow passage after another, over
lumps of rock and sand and clay, the thread guided her, until she
came to a small hole through which she had to creep.
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