It was like being suddenly deaf and blind, only darker and quieter even than that.
But before the children had got over the sudden shock of it enough to be frightened, a faint, beautiful light began to show in the middle of the circle, and at the same moment a faint, beautiful voice began to speak.
The light was too small for one to see anything by, and the voice was too small for you to hear what it said.

You could just see the light and just hear the voice.
But the light grew stronger.

It was greeny, like glow-worms' lamps, and it grew and grew till it was as though thousands and thousands of glow-worms were signalling to their winged sweethearts from the middle of the circle.

And the voice grew, not so much in loudness as in sweetness (though it grew louder, too), till it was so sweet that you wanted to cry with pleasure just at the sound of it.

It was like nightingales, and the sea, and the fiddle, and the voice of your mother when you have been a long time away, and she meets you at the door when you get home.
And the voice said-- 'Speak.