A croaking voice announced that the queen was inside her Arab tent, and she was crooning some Romany song.

Chaldea did not open her mouth, but simply snapped her fingers twice or thrice rapidly.

The woman within must have had marvellously sharp ears, for she immediately stopped her incantation--the songs sounded like one--and stepped forth.
"Oh!" said Miss Greeby, stepping back, "I am disappointed." She had every reason to be after the picturesqueness of the camp in general, and Chaldea in particular, for Mother Cockleshell looked like a threadbare pew-opener, or an almshouse widow who had seen better days.
Apparently she was very old, for her figure had shrivelled up into a diminutive monkey form, and she looked as though a moderately high wind could blow her about like a feather.

Her face was brown and puckered and lined in a most wonderful fashion.

Where a wrinkle could be, there a wrinkle was, and her nose and chin were of the true nutcracker order, as a witch's should be.