ides the oriental bamboo couches and porcelain barrels that flank the
room, with little daisy-and-moss-like _chenille_ rugs beside them. One
Canton tepoy holds my _aquarium_, and another, beside the most
frequented of the lounges, the last number of the most weighty of North
American periodicals. If ever I take a nap, it is here.

In the centre of the room, a white-marble Egeria, carved by Thorwaldsen,
throws up between her hands a shaft of cold crystal water, pure as
truth, which spreads into a silvery veil all around her, and plashes
down in a snowy basin: no place could be more inviting for a bath. But
in the winter Egeria shows her power of adaptation by furnishing instead
a Geyser of hot water. Then I turn my scientific friends in here, when
they call upon me, to make them feel at home.

In the position of Jack Horner, sits Miss Hosmer's Puck. Opposite is a
mate production, which she never put on exhibition. It is Ariel, perched
hiding in a honeysuckle, and leaning slyly out to play on an AEolian harp
in a cottage latticed window.

Over the somewhat frequented couch of which I have spoken, there is a
picture by Paul Delaroche of

'Sabrina fair
Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,
In twisted braids of lilies knitting
The loose folds of her amber-dropping hair.'

On the other side hangs another painting which I prefer, partly perhaps
because even in my castle I was for a time at a loss how to procure it.
The subject was recommended to me by Hans Christian Andersen. It is the
story of a beautiful princess. Are not Danish princesses always
beautiful?

Her numerous brothers were so unfortunate as to be laid, by a witch,
under a spell of a most inconvenient sort. Every morning they were
turned into wild swans. Every day they were obliged to fly over many a
league of gray ocean to the mainland and back to their home, an island
in the midst of the sea. At every sunset they resumed their natural
shape, and were princes all night. One day they met their sister on the
shore. They undertook to carry her back with them. Her Weight made them
slower than usual. A storm came up in the after noon. There was a sad
probability of the swans being turned into princes again before they
could possibly 'see her home.'

In my picture, half of the swans are a plumy raft for her, and row her
through the air with their sweeping wings. Another relay, more tired,
perhaps, make a canopy over her, and fa