off the corridors in a heap, will always be a mystery to me. Yet,
with the unimportant exception of sitting down occasionally to put on
my boots, somewhat harder than I meant, I remember few such mishaps.
It was not the surface that was unwilling; for the constant scuffle
of stocking feet has given the passageways a polish mahogany might
envy.

The man proved anything but inhuman, and very much mine host.
How courteous he was, and in what a pleased mind with the world,
even its whims of weather, his kind attentions put me! He really did
so little, too. Beside numberless bows and profuse politeness,
he simply laid a small and very thin quilt upon the mats for me to
sit on, and put a feeble brazier by my side. So far as mere comfort
went, the first act savored largely of supererogation, as the mats
were already exquisitely clean, and the second of insufficiency,
since the brazier served only to point the cold it was powerless to
chase. But the manner of the doing so charmed the mind that it
almost persuaded the grumbling body of content.

As mine host bowed himself out, a maid bowed herself in, with a tray
of tea and sugar-plums, and a grace that beggared appreciation.

"His Augustness is well come," she said, as she sank on her knees and
bowed her pretty head till it touched the mats; and the voice was
only too human for heaven. Unconsciously it made the better part of
a caress.

"Would his Augustness deign to take some tea? Truly he must be very
tired;" and, pouring out a cup, she placed it beside me as it might
have been some beautiful rite, and then withdrew, leaving me, beside