cataract over the windows; the old- fashioned bed, with the
chintz furniture, on which I had slept from boyhood. "Now I
shall sleep," I said to myself. "My shadow dares not come here."

I sat down to the table, and began to help myself to the good
things before me with confidence. And now I found, as in many
instances before, how true the fairy tales are; for I was waited
on, all the time of my meal, by invisible hands. I had scarcely
to do more than look towards anything I wanted, when it was
brought me, just as if it had come to me of itself. My glass was
kept filled with the wine I had chosen, until I looked towards
another bottle or decanter; when a fresh glass was substituted,
and the other wine supplied. When I had eaten and drank more
heartily and joyfully than ever since I entered Fairy Land, the
whole was removed by several attendants, of whom some were male
and some female, as I thought I could distinguish from the way
the dishes were lifted from the table, and the motion with which
they were carried out of the room. As soon as they were all
taken away, I heard a sound as of the shutting of a door, and
knew that I was left alone. I sat long by the fire, meditating,
and wondering how it would all end; and when at length, wearied
with thinking, I betook myself to my own bed, it was half with a
hope that, when I awoke in the morning, I should awake not only
in my own room, but in my own castle also; and that I should
walk, out upon my own native soil, and find that Fairy Land was,
after all, only a vision of the night. The sound of the falling
waters of the fountain floated me into oblivion.