She stoops down to throw some coal on the fire. She is too much
exhausted physically to make it up carefully; but with an effort piles
on large blocks and small indiscriminately, then throws in a handful of
matches from a box within reach. What strange chaos there seems to be in
the grate after a little while! One after another the matches go off
with a phiz and short-lived flare, and each seems to light up a more
curious scene than the last. From being mere piled-up blocks of coal in
a grate, they grow to be a half blocked up entrance to some unknown
place. There is a large shining black portal, half ruined, surrounded
with _débris_. By degrees Hazel's languid curiosity is excited, and she
wonders whither it leads. Why should she not explore?... The next match
which takes fire lights up the slight form leaning far back in the big
chair, with the soft, golden brown hair half loosened, and the dark,
shadowed eyes fast closed. And Hazel has passed through the dark
gateway, and is in a wonderful world.

What a strange black gateway to have led into so fair a garden! Hazel
pauses at the entrance, her eyes glistening, her breath taken away with
delight at the beauty of the scene before her. A paradise of fresh green
shade and exquisite light and colouring. Wide-spreading chestnuts,
graceful, feathery birches, and a hundred other trees, clothed and robed
in their tender young leaves, mingle with a glory of pink and white
spring blossom, which seems to fill the air like a snowstorm in the
clear, blue sky. The South wind blows and fans Hazel's cheek, and wafts
delicious breath of flowers and sweet-brier around her. Beneath the
shower of snowy blossom stretches smooth, green grass, and masses of
brilliant flowers glow, expanding their petals up towards the sun.

After a while Hazel wanders forward in a dreamy intoxication of delight,