h
or great.

It was a very house of gold.

Over the door where the lads marched in was the Queen's device, a golden
rose, with a motto set below in letters of gold, "Dieu et mon droit";
and upon the walls were blazoned coats of noble arms on branching golden
trees, of purest metal and finest silk, costly beyond compare. The royal
presence-chamber shone with tapestries of gold, of silver, and of
oriental silks, of as many shifting colors as the birds of paradise, and
wrought in exquisite design, The throne was set with diamonds, with
rubies, garnets, and sapphires, glittering like a pastry-crust of stars,
and garnished with gold-lace work, pearls, and ornament; and under the
velvet canopy which hung above the throne was embroidered in
seed-pearls, "Vivat Regina Elizabetha!" There was no door without a
gorgeous usher, no room without a page, no corridor without a guard, no
post without a man of noble birth to fill it.

On the walls of the great gallery were masterly paintings of great folk,
globes showing all the stars fast in the sky, and drawings of the world
and all its parts, so real that one could see the savages in the New
World hanging to the under side by their feet, like flies upon the
ceiling. How they stuck was more than Nick could make out; and where
they landed if they chanced to slip and fall troubled him a deal, until
in the sheer multiplication of wonders he could not wonder any more.

When they came to rehearse in the afternoon the stage was hung with
stiff, rich silks that had come in costly cedar chests from the looms of
old Cathay; and the curtain behind which the players came and went was
broidered with gold thread in flowers and birds like meteors for
splendor. The gallery, too, where the musicians sat, was draped with
silk and damask.

Some of the lads would have made out by their great airs as if this were
all a common thing to them; but Nick stared honestly with round eyes,
and went about with cautious feet, chary of touching things, and feeling
very much out of place and shy.

It was all too grand, too wonderful,--amazing to look upon, no doubt,
and good to outface foreign envy with, but not to be endured every day
nor lived with comfortably. And as the day went by, each passing moment
with new marvels, Nick grew more and more uneasy for some simple little
nook where he might just sit down and be quiet for a while, as one could
do at home, without fine pages peering at him from the screens