attempting to describe them, and I think he had better not try to
draw them. He had better not. He can do a thousand things I
can't, but I don't think he could draw those toys. No man could
better make the princess herself than he could, though - leaning
with her back bowed into the back of the chair, her head hanging
down, and her hands in her lap, very miserable as she would say
herself, not even knowing what she would like, except it were to go
out and get thoroughly wet, and catch a particularly nice cold, and
have to go to bed and take gruel. The next moment after you see
her sitting there, her nurse goes out of the room.

Even that is a change, and the princess wakes up a little, and
looks about her. Then she tumbles off her chair and runs out of
the door, not the same door the nurse went out of, but one which
opened at the foot of a curious old stair of worm-eaten oak, which
looked as if never anyone had set foot upon it. She had once
before been up six steps, and that was sufficient reason, in such
a day, for trying to find out what was at the top of it.

Up and up she ran - such a long way it seemed to her! - until she
came to the top of the third flight. There she found the landing
was the end of a long passage. Into this she ran. It was full of
doors on each side. There were so many that she did not care to
open any, but ran on to the end, where she turned into another
passage, also full of doors. When she had turned twice more, and
still saw doors and only doors about her, she began to get
frightened. It was so silent! And all those doors must hide rooms
with nobody in them! That was dreadful. Also the rain made a
great trampling noise on the roof. She turned and started at full
speed, her little footsteps echoing through the sounds of the rain