ce during the hour of the
midday siesta the king, wandering about his unfinished house, found in
this room one of the maids of honour. Her he kissed, when another maid
immediately went and told the queen, Philippa of Lancaster. She was
angry, but Dom Joao only said 'Por bem,' meaning much what his queen's
grandfather had meant when he said 'Honi soit qui mal y pense,' and to
remind the maids of honour, whose waiting-room this was, that they must
not tell tales, he had the magpies painted on the ceiling.

The two windows, one looking west and one into the pateo, are exactly
like those already described.

From the Sala das Pegas one door leads up a few steps into the Sala das
Sereias, and another to the dining-room. This Sala das Sereias, so
called from the mermaids painted on the ceiling, is a small room some
eighteen feet square. It is lit by a two-light window opening towards
the courtyard, a window just like those of the Sala das Pegas and of the
Sala dos Cysnes. Some of its walls, especially that between it and the
Sala das Pegas, are very thick and seem to be older than the time of Dom
Joao. As usual, the walls are partly covered with beautiful tiles,
mostly embossed with green vine-leaves, but round the door leading to
the long narrow room, used as a servery, is an interlacing pattern of
green and blue tiles, while the spandrils between this and the pointed
doorhead are filled with a true Arabesque pattern, dark on a light
ground, which is said to belong to the Palace of the Walis. There are
altogether four doors, one leading to the servery, one to the Sala das
Pegas, one to a spiral stair in the corner of the pateo, and one to the
dining-room.

This dining-room projects somewhat to the west so as to leave space for
a window looking south to the mountains, and one looking north across a
small court, as well as one looking west. Of these, the two which look
south and west are like each other, and like the other of Dom Joao's
time except that the arches are not cusped; that the outer frame is
omitted and that the abaci are moulded in front as well as at the ends;
but the third window looking north is rather different. The framing has
regular late Gothic bases, the capitals of the shafts are quite unlike
the rest, having one large curly leaf at each angle, and the moulding
running up the centre between the arches--which are not cusped--is
plaited instead of being plain. Altogether it looks as if it were later
than