gone, he thought, through some very great number of rooms, for
they walked so long on and on, on and on. At last the stove was
set down again, and, happily for him, set so that his feet were
downward.

What he fancied was that he was in some museum, like that which he
had seen in the city of Innspruck.

The voices he heard were very hushed, and the steps seemed to go
away, far away, leaving him alone with Hirschvogel. He dared not
look out, but he peeped through the brasswork, and all he could
see was a big carved lion's head in ivory, with a gold crown atop.
It belonged to a velvet fauteuil, but he could not see the chair,
only the ivory lion.

There was a delicious fragrance in the air--a fragrance as of
flowers. "Only how can it be flowers?" thought August. "It is
November!"

From afar off, as it seemed, there came a dreamy, exquisite music,
as sweet as the spinnet's had been, but so much fuller, so much
richer, seeming as though a chorus of angels were singing all
together. August ceased to think of the museum: he thought of
heaven. "Are we gone to the Master?" he thought, remembering the
words of Hirschvogel.

All was so still around him; there was no sound anywhere except
the sound of the far-off choral music.

He did not know it, but he was in the royal castle of Berg, and