promises, for a clock was striking eleven, and they had been
ordered to reach their destination at that hour, and, though the
air was so cold, the heat-drops rolled off their foreheads as
they walked, they were so frightened at being late. But the
porters would not budge a foot quicker than they chose, and as
they were not poor four-footed carriers their employers dared not
thrash them, though most willingly would they have done so.

The road seemed terribly long to the anxious tradesmen, to the
plodding porters, to the poor little man inside the stove, as he
kept sinking and rising, sinking and rising, with each of their
steps.

Where they were going he had no idea, only after a very long time
he lost the sense of the fresh icy wind blowing on his face
through the brass-work above, and felt by their movements beneath
him that they were mounting steps or stairs. Then he heard a
great many different voices, but he could not understand what was
being said. He felt that his bearers paused some time, then moved
on and on again. Their feet went so softly he thought they must
be moving on carpet, and as he felt a warm air come to him he
concluded that he was in some heated chambers, for he was a
clever little fellow, and could put two and two together, though
he was so hungry and so thirsty and his empty stomach felt so
strangely. They must have 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 brass work, 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
December!"

From afar off, as it seemed, there came a dreamy, exquisite
music, as sweet as the spinet'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 thou