"I have never enjoyed a dance so much in my life," she said seriously.

He laughed.

"It must have been an inspiration--" he began, and checked himself,
with a glance over his shoulder at the painted panel behind them.

"You were saying--" She looked up after a moment.

"Nothing. Listen to the Ting-tang!"

He drew aside one of the orange curtains, and Dorothea heard the note
of a bell clanging in a distant street. "Time for all good prisoners
to be in bed, and Heaven temper the wind to the thin blanket! It is
snowing--snowing furiously."

"Do they suffer much in these winters?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"They die sometimes, though your brother does his best to prevent it.
It promises to be a hard season for them."

"I wish I could help; but Endymion--my brother does not approve of
ladies mixing themselves up in these affairs."

"Yet he has carried off half-a-dozen to the supper-room, where at a
side table three of my compatriots are vending knick-knacks, to add
a little beef to their _ragoûts_."