out the words.

"Hadn't we better be moving?" it said.

A rougher and deeper voice replied: "There's no hurry. That wretched little mole won't be through tonight, if he work ever so hard. He's not by any means at the thinnest place."

"But you still think the lode does come through into our house?" said the first voice.

"Yes, but a good bit farther on than he has got to yet. If he had struck a stroke more to the side just here," said the goblin, tapping the very stone, as it seemed to Curdie, against which his head lay, "he would have been through; but he's a couple of yards past it now, and if he follows the lode it will be a week before it leads him in. You see it back there—a long way. Still, perhaps, in case of an accident it would be as well to be getting out of this. Helfer, you'll take the great chest. That's your business, you know."

"Yes, dad," said a third voice. "But you must help me to get it on my back. It's awfully heavy, you know."

"Well, it isn't just a bag of smoke, I admit. But you're as strong as a mountain, Helfer."

"You say so, dad. I think myself I'm all right. But I could carry ten times as much if it wasn't for my feet."

"That is your weak point, I confess, my boy." "Ain't it yours too, father?"

"Well, to be honest, it's a goblin weakness. Why they come so soft, I declare I haven't an idea."

"Specially when your head's so hard, you know, father."

"Yes my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To think how the fellows up above there have to put on helmets and things when they go fighting! Ha! ha!"

"But why don't we wear shoes like them, father? I should like it—especially when I've got a chest like that on my head."

"Well, you see, it's not the fashion. The king never wears shoes.""The queen does."
"Yes; but that's for distinction. The first queen, you see--I mean the king's first wife--wore shoes, of course, because she came from upstairs; and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior to her as she called it, and would wear shoes too. It was all pride. She is the hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women."
"I'm sure I wouldn't wear them--no, not for--that I wouldn't!" said the first voice, which was evidently 

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