the shelf near the table so as to be easily reached by the outstretched
arm, is a press full of books. The door of this has been left open, and
the books, I am grieved to say, are rather in disorder, having been
pulled about before the princess went to bed, and one left standing on
its side.

Opposite this window, on the white wall, is a small shrine or picture (I
can't see which, for it is in sharp retiring perspective), with a lamp
before it, and a silver vessel hung from the lamp, looking like one for
holding incense.

The bed is a broad four-poster, the posts being beautifully wrought
golden or gilded rods, variously wreathed and branched, carrying a
canopy of warm red. The princess's shield is at the head of it, and the
feet are raised entirely above the floor of the room, on a dais which
projects at the lower end so as to form a seat, on which the child has
laid her crown. Her little blue slippers lie at the side of the
bed,--her white dog beside them, the coverlid is scarlet, the white
sheet folded half way back over it; the young girl lies straight,
bending neither at waist nor knee, the sheet rising and falling over her
in a narrow unbroken wave, like the shape of the coverlid of the last
sleep, when the turf scarcely rises. She is some seventeen or eighteen
years old, her head is turned towards us on the pillow, the cheek
resting on her hand, as if she were thinking, yet utterly calm in sleep,
and almost colourless. Her hair is tied with a narrow riband, and
divided into two wreaths, which encircle her head like a double crown.
The white nightgown hides the arm raised on the pillow, down to the
wrist.

At the door of the room an angel enters; (the little dog, though lying