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 housewifely dress, talks quietly, going on with her
needle-work all the time.

A workwoman, friends, she, no less than a princess; and princess most
in being so. In like manner is a picture by a Florentine, whose mind I
would fain have you know somewhat, as well as Carpaccio's--Sandro
Botticelli. The girl who is to be the wife of Moses, when he first
sees her at the desert well, has fruit in her left hand, but a distaff
in her right.

"To do good work, whether you live or die"--it is the entrance to all
Princedoms; and if not done, the day will come, and that infallibly,
when you must labour for evil instead of good.

_FORS CLAVIGERA_

Sunnyside, Orpington, Kent, 1872.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

* * * * *

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