The room was scantily furnished, but the few objects it contained, the
carved table, the high-backed chairs and the chiselled bronze brazier,
bore the stamp of the time when art had not long been born again. On the
walls there were broad tapestries of bold design, showing green forests
populated by all sorts of animals in stiff attitudes, staring at one
another in perpetual surprise. Below the tapestry a carved walnut
wainscoting went round the room, and the door was panelled and flanked
by fluted doorposts of the same dark wood, on which rested corbels
fashioned into curling acanthus leaves, to hold up the cornice, which
itself made a high shelf over the door. Three painted Italian vases,
filled with last summer's rose leaves and carefully sealed lest the
faint perfume should be lost, stood symmetrically on this projection,
their contents slowly ripening for future use. The heap of white ashes,
under which the wood coals were still alive in the big brazier, diffused
a little warmth through the chilly room.

The two girls were sitting at opposite ends of the table. The one held a
long goose-quill pen, and before her lay several large sheets of paper
covered with fine writing. Her eyes followed the lines slowly, and from
time to time she made a correction in the manuscript. As she read, her
lips moved to form words, but she made no sound. Now and then a faint
smile lent singular beauty to her face, and there was more light in her
eyes, too; then it disappeared again, and she read on, carefully and
intently, as if her soul were in the work.

She was very fair, as Spaniards sometimes are still, and were more often
in those days, with golden hair and deep grey eyes; she had the high
features, the smooth white throat, and the finely modelled ears that
were the outward signs of the lordly Gothic race. When she was not
smiling, her face was sad, and sometimes the delicate colour left her