What was to be done? Had the falry-life been merged in the real life? Or was Lady Muriel 'eerie' also, and thus able to enter into the fairy-world along with me? The words were on my lips ("I see an old friend of mine in the lane: if you don't know him, may I introduce him to you?") when the strangest thing of all happened: Lady Muriel spoke.
"I see an old friend of mine in the lane," she said: "If you don't know him, may I introduce him to you?"
I seemed to wake out of a dream: for the 'eerie' feeling was still strong upon me, and the figure outside seemed to be changing at every moment, like one of the shapes in a kaleidoscope: now he was the Professor, and now he was somebody else! By the time he had reached the gate, he certainly was somebody else: and I felt that the proper course was for Lady Muriel, not for me, to introduce him. She greeted him kindly, and, opening the gate, admitted the venerable old man
a German, obviously who looked about him with dazed eyes, as if he, too, had but just awaked from a dream!