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286 wreath fastened back the blue satin folds of the windows, which opened upon a conservatory filled with the rarest exotics—and a small marble fountain in the midst showered its musical and diamond rain over the rich cactuses around—those gems of the world of flowers, as if their native soil had dyed their leaves with the glorious colours which wait impatiently for daylight in its mines: one, more than all, seemed the very flower of a fairy tale—a huge green snake, with a head of flame—a serpent king, with its crown of rubies—its red hues coloured like fire the water below. Around the room was scattered all that makes luxury forgotten in taste: the little French clock, where a golden Cupid sat swinging, and the lapse of time is only told by music—the beautiful Annuals, those Assyrians of literature, "gleaming in purple and gold," and opened at some lovely scene or lovelier face—the cut-crystal glass, with one rose bending over the side—the alabaster vases carved as in snow—glittering toys, and china coloured with the rainbow, and diminutive enough to be Oberon's offering to his fairy queen—a fan, whose soft pink feathers cast their own delicate shade on the face reflected in the miniature mirror set