Somehow it seemed the most natural thing in the world, that all of them would sit down together to have tea.

Frodo gazed at Mirimë, perplexed. Who did she remind him of, he wondered? When she laughed, he thought perhaps it was his mother, for his clearest memory of his mother was her laugh, high and light and warm. But when her eyes seemed to take a greenish cast, he thought she was like his Aunt Esmeralda, who had always seemed to study his face as though she were looking for something there. And then, a stray curl blew down into her eyes, and she blew it away with a little puff from the side of her mouth, just the way Pervinca Took had always done. And the arch of her brow made him think of his Aunt Dora…

“Who are you, really?” Frodo asked, not actually knowing himself what he meant by the question.

“Frodo!” exclaimed Bilbo, as though he were a youngster who had committed some breach of manners.

She smiled, and the dimple that appeared reminded Frodo of Pippin’s Diamond. “Once, I was the handmaiden of Yavanna Kementári. She gave me the task of watching over a young race of small people when they first awoke.”

“Hobbits,” Bilbo said, leaning his elbows on the table and cupping his chin in his hands.

“And so I watched them, and none knew I was there, until one day I noticed a comely young Fallohide, fair of face, with dark curls and laughing brown eyes, clever and proud, and like my sister Melian, I found myself enspelled by one of the Children of Ilúvatar.”

“But Melian loved Thingol, a King of Elves, beautiful and immortal!” Frodo exclaimed.

“And I loved a hobbit, my Tûk, beautiful and mortal,” she said proudly.