little bed; it was bright day, and her mother stood by her, saying: "How can you sleep so long? breakfast has been ready this great while." You now perceive, kind readers and listeners, that Maria, completely confused by the wonderful things which she had seen, had at last fallen asleep in the room at Marchpane Castle, and that the Moors, or the pages, or perhaps even the princesses themselves must have carried her home, and laid her softly in bed. "Oh, mother, dear mother, you cannot think where young Master Drosselmeier led me last night, and what beautiful things I have seen!" And then she began and told the whole, almost as accurately as I have related it, while her mother listened in astonishment.
When she had finished, her mother said: "You have had a long and very beautiful dream, but now drive it all out of your head." Maria insisted upon it that she had not dreamed, but had actually seen what she had related, when
