(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
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?"

Par