There was no answer.
    
    "She's angry about all the things I've been saying lately," thought Edmund. And 
though he did not like to admit that he had been wrong, he also did not much like being 
alone in this strange, cold, quiet place; so he shouted again.
    
    "I say, Lu! I'm sorry I didn't believe you. I see now you were right all along. Do 
come out. Make it Pax."
    
    Still there was no answer.
    
    "Just like a girl," said Edmund to himself, "sulking somewhere, and won't accept an 
apology." He looked round him again and decided he did not much like this place, and had 
almost made up his mind to go home, when he heard, very far off in the wood, a sound of 
bells. He listened and the sound came nearer and nearer and at last there swept into 
sight a sledge drawn by two reindeer.
    
    The reindeer were about the size of Shetland ponies and their hair was so white that 
even the snow hardly looked white compared with them; their branching horns were gilded 
and shone like something on fire when the sunrise caught them. Their harness was of 
scarlet leather and covered with bells. On the sledge, driving the reindeer, sat a fat 
dwarf who would have been about three feet high if he had been standing. He was dressed 
in polar bear's fur and on his head he wore a red hood with a long gold tassel hanging 
down from its point; his huge beard covered his knees and served him instead of a rug. 
But behind him, on a much higher seat in the middle of the sledge sat a very different 
person-a great lady, taller than any woman that Edmund had ever seen. She also was 
covered in white fur up to her throat and held a long straight golden wand in her right 
hand and wore a golden crown on her head. Her face was white-not merely pale, but white 
like snow or paper or icing-sugar, except for her very red mouth. It was a beautiful face 
in other respects, but proud and cold and stern.
    
    The sledge was a fine sight as it came sweeping towards Edmund with the bells 
jingling and the dwarf cracking his whip and the snow flying up on each side of it.
    
    "Stop!" said the Lady, and the dwarf pulled the reindeer up so sharp that they almost 
sat down. Then they recovered themselves and stood champing their bits and blowing. In 
the frosty air the breath coming out of their nostrils looked like smoke.
    
    "And what, pray, are you?" said the Lady, looking hard at Edmund.
    
    "I'm-I'm-my name's Edmund," said Edmund rather awkwardly. He did not like the way she 
looked at him.
    
    The Lady frowned, "Is that how you address a Queen?" she asked, looking sterner than 
ever.
    
    "I beg your pardon, your Majesty, I didn't know," said Edmund:
    
    "Not know the Queen of Narnia?" cried she. "Ha! You shall know us better hereafter. 
But I repeat-what are you?"
    
    "Please, your Majesty," said Edmund, "I don't know what you mean. I'm at school-at 
least I was it's the holidays now."
    
    
    
    CHAPTER FOUR
    
    TURKISH DELIGHT
    
    "BUT what are you?" said the Queen again. "Are you a great overgrown dwarf that has 
cut off its beard?"
    
    "No, your Majesty," said Edmund, "I never had a beard, I'm a boy."
    
    "A boy!" said she. "Do you mean you are a Son of Adam?"
    
    Edmund stood still, saying nothing. He was too confused by this time to understand 
what the question meant.
    
    "I see you are an idiot, whatever else you may be," said the Queen. "Answer me, once 
and for all, or I shall lose my patience. Are you human?"
    
    "Yes, your Majesty," said Edmund.
    
    "And how, pray, did you come to enter my dominions?"
    
    "Please, your Majesty, I came in through a wardrobe."
    
    "A wardrobe? What do you mean?"
    
    "I-I opened a door and just found myself here, your Majesty," said Edmund.
    
    "Ha!" said the Queen, speaking more to herself than to him. "A door. A door from the 
world of men! I have heard of such things. This may wreck all. But he is only one, and he 
is easily dealt with." As she spoke these words she rose from her seat and looked Edmund 
full in the face, her eyes flaming; at the same moment she raised her wand. Edmund felt 
sure that she was going to do something dreadful but he seemed unable to move. Then, just 
as he gave himself up for lost, she appeared to change her mind.
    
    "My poor child," she said in quite a different voice, "how cold you look! Come and 
sit with me here on the sledge and I will put my mantle round you and we will talk."
    
    Edmund did not like this arrangement at all but he dared not disobey; he stepped on 
to the sledge and sat at her feet, and she put a fold of her fur mantle round him and 
tucked it well in.
    
    "Perhaps something hot to drink?" said the Queen. "Should you like that?"