Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/282

Rh about her pillows, and her gorgeous cloth of gold lying on a couch like a queen's robes abandoned, slept restlessly, yet with a smile on her face, some few hours: when she awoke it was with a smile, and with that vague sweet sense of awakening to some great joy, which is one of the most precious gifts of happiness; dreamful misty sense of expectation and recollections blending in one, and making the light of day beautiful.

She lay still some time, awake, and yet dreaming, with half-closed eyelids and her thick hair loosened and covering her shoulders, and the sweet scent close at hand of a glassful of myrtle and calycanthus, that she had been very careful to tell them to set near her bed. Lazily, after awhile, she rang a little bell, and bade her maids open her shutters, the grand light of the noonday poured into the chamber.

"Give me a mirror," she said to them.

When they gave her one, she looked at herself and smiled again: she was one of those women who are lovely when they wake: there are not many.

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