awake, vigilant, takes no notice.) He is a very small angel, his head
just rises a little above the shelf round the room, and would only reach
as high as the princess's chin, if she were standing up. He has soft
grey wings, lustreless; and his dress, of subdued blue, has violet
sleeves, open above the elbow, and showing white sleeves below. He comes
in without haste, his body, like a mortal one, casting shadow from the
light through the door behind, his face perfectly quiet; a palm-branch
in his right hand--a scroll in his left.

So dreams the princess, with blessed eyes, that need no earthly dawn. It
is very pretty of Carpaccio to make her dream out the angel's dress so
particularly, and notice the slashed sleeves; and to dream so little an
angel--very nearly a doll angel,--bringing her the branch of palm, and
message. But the lovely characteristic of all is the evident delight of
her continual life. Royal power over herself, and happiness in her
flowers, her books, her sleeping and waking, her prayers, her dreams,
her earth, her heaven....

"How do I know the princess is industrious?"

Partly by the trim state of her room,--by the hour-glass on the
table,--by the evident use of all the books she has, (well bound, every
one of them, in stoutest leather or velvet, and with no dog's-ears,) but
more distinctly from another picture of her, not asleep. In that one a
prince of England has sent to ask her in marriage: and her father,
little liking to part with her, sends for her to his room to ask her
what she would do. He sits, moody and sorrowful; she, standing before
him in a plain house-wifely dress, talks quietly, going on with her
needlework all the time.