countries beyond the sea began to send ambassadors asking for her hand in marriage. And 
she was called Susan the Gentle. Edmund was a graver and quieter man than Peter, and 
great in council and judgement. He was called King Edmund the Just. But as for Lucy, she 
was always gay and golden-haired, and all princes in those parts desired her to be their 
Queen, and her own people called her Queen Lucy the Valiant.
    
    So they lived in great joy and if ever they remembered their life in this world it 
was only as one remembers a dream. And one year it fell out that Tumnus (who was a 
middle-aged Faun by now and beginning to be stout) came down river and brought them news 
that the White Stag had once more appeared in his parts-the White Stag who would give you 
wishes if you caught him. So these two Kings and two Queens with the principal members of 
their court, rode a-hunting with horns and hounds in the Western Woods to follow the 
White Stag. And they had not hunted long before they had a sight of him. And he led them 
a great pace over rough and smooth and through thick and thin, till the horses of all the 
courtiers were tired out and these four were still following. And they saw the stag enter 
into a thicket where their horses could not follow. Then said King Peter (for they talked 
in quite a different style now, having been Kings and Queens for so long), "Fair 
Consorts, let us now alight from our horses and follow this beast into the thicket; for 
in all my days I never hunted a nobler quarry."
    
    "Sir," said the others, "even so let us do."
    
    So they alighted and tied their horses to trees and went on into the thick wood on 
foot. And as soon as they had entered it Queen Susan said,
    
    "Fair friends, here is a great marvel, for I seem to see a tree of iron."
    
    "Madam," said,King Edmund, "if you look well upon it you shall see it is a pillar of 
iron with a lantern set on the top thereof."
    
    "By the Lion's Mane, a strange device," said King Peter, "to set a lantern here where 
the trees cluster so thick about it and so high above it that if it were lit it should 
give light to no man!"
    
    "Sir," said Queen Lucy. "By likelihood when this post and this lamp were set here 
there were smaller trees in the place, or fewer, or none. For this is a young wood and 
the iron post is old." And they stood looking upon it. Then said King Edmund,
    
    "I know not how it is, but this lamp on the post worketh upon me strangely. It runs 
in my mind that I have seen the like before; as it were in a dream, or in the dream of a 
dream."
    
    "Sir," answered they all, "it is even so with us also."
    
    "And more," said Queen Lucy, "for it will not go out of my mind that if we pass this 
post and lantern either we shall find strange adventures or else some great change of our 
fortunes."
    
    "Madam," said King Edmund, "the like foreboding stirreth in my heart also."
    
    "And in mine, fair brother," said King Peter.
    
    "And in mine too," said Queen Susan. "Wherefore by my counsel we shall lightly return 
to our horses and follow this White Stag no further."
    
    "Madam," said King Peter, "therein I pray thee to have me excused. For never since we 
four were Kings and Queens in Narnia have we set our hands to any high matter, as 
battles, quests, feats of arms, acts of justice, and the like, and then given over; but 
always what we have taken in hand, the same we have achieved."
    
    "Sister," said Queen Lucy, "my royal brother speaks rightly. And it seems to me we 
should be shamed if for any fearing or foreboding we turned back from following so noble 
a beast as now we have in chase."
    
    "And so say I," said King Edmund. "And I have such desire to find the signification 
of this thing that I would not by my good will turn back for the richest jewel in all 
Narnia and all the islands."
    
    "Then in the name of Aslan," said Queen Susan, "if ye will all have it so, let us go 
on and take the adventure that shall fall to us."
    
    So these Kings and Queens entered the thicket, and before they had gone a score of 
paces they all remembered that the thing they had seen was called a lamppost, and before 
they had gone twenty more they noticed that they were. making their way not through 
branches but through coats. And next moment they all came tumbling out of a wardrobe door 
into the empty room, and They were no longer Kings and Queens in their hunting array but 
just Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy in their old clothes. It was the same day and the same 
hour of the day on which they had all gone into the wardrobe to hide. Mrs Macready and 
the visitors were still talking in the passage; but luckily they never came into the 
empty room and so the children weren't caught.
    
    And that would have been the very end of the story if it hadn't been that they felt 
they really must explain to the Professor why four of the coats out of his wardrobe were 
missing. And the Professor, who was a very remarkable man, didn't tell them not to be 
silly or not to tell lies, but believed the whole story. "No," he said, "I don't think it 
will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats. You won't 
get into Narnia again by that route. Nor would the coats be much use by now if you did!
    Eh? What's that? Yes, of course you'll get back to Narnia again some day. Once a King 
in Narnia, always a King in Narnia. But don't go trying to use the same route twice.
    Indeed, don't try to get there at all. It'll happen when you're not looking for it. 
And don't talk too much about it even among yourselves. And don't mention it to anyone 
else unless you find that they've had adventures of the same sort themselves. What's 
that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right. Odd things they say-even their 
looks-will let the secret out. Keep your eyes open. Bless me, what do they teach them at 
these schools?
    
    And that is the very end of the adventure of the wardrobe. But if the Professor was 
right it was only the beginning of the adventures of Narnia.