The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

"Why the dickens couldn't you have held her feet?" said Eustace.
"I don't know, Scrubb," groaned Puddleglum. "Born to be a misfit, I shouldn't wonder.
Fated. Fated to be Pole's death, just as I was fated to eat Talking Stag at Harfang. Not that
it isn't my own fault as well, of course."
"This is the greatest shame and sorrow that could have fallen on us," said the Prince. "We
have sent a brave lady into the hands of enemies and stayed behind in safety."
"Don't paint it too black, Sir," said Puddleglum. "We're not very safe except for death by
starvation in this hole."
"I wonder am I small enough to get through where Jill did?" said Eustace.
What had really happened to Jill was this. As soon as she got her head out of the hole she
found that she was looking down as if from an upstairs window, not up as if through a
trap-door. She had been so long in the dark that her eyes couldn't at first take in what they
were seeing: except that she was not looking at the daylit, sunny world which she so
wanted to see. The air seemed to be deadly cold, and the light was pale and blue. There
was also a good deal of noise going on and a lot of white objects flying about in the air. It
was at that moment that she had shouted down to Puddleglum to let her stand up on his
shoulders.
When she had done this, she could see and hear a good deal better. The noises she had
been hearing turned out to be of two kinds: the rhythmical thump of several feet, and the
music of four fiddles, three flutes, and a drum. She also got her own position clear. She
was looking out of a hole in a steep bank which sloped down and reached the level about
fourteen feet below her. Everything was very white. A lot of people were moving about.
Then she gasped! The people were trim little Fauns, and Dryads with leafcrowned hair
floating behind them. For a second they looked as if they were moving anyhow; then she
saw that they were really doing a dance - a dance with so many complicated steps and
figures that it took you some time to understand it. Then it came over her like a
thunderclap that the pale, blue light was really moonlight, and the white stuff on the
ground was really snow. And of course! There were the stars staring in a black frosty sky
overhead. And the tall black things behind the dancers were trees. They had not only got
out into the upper world at last, but had come out in the heart of Narnia. Jill felt she could
have fainted with delight; and the music - the wild music, intensely sweet and yet just the
least bit eerie too, and full of good magic as the Witch's thrumming had been full of bad
magic - made her feel it all the more.
All this takes a long time to tell, but of course it took a very short time to see. Jill turned
almost at once to shout down to the others, "I say! It's all right. We're out, and we're
home." But the reason she never got further than "I say" was this. Circling round and
round the dancers was a ring of Dwarfs, all dressed in their finest clothes; mostly scarlet
with fur-lined hoods and golden tassels and big furry top-boots. As they circled round
they were all diligently throwing snowballs. (Those were the white things that Jill had