gave the needed touch of brilliancy to the somber massiveness of the dull bronze.
Great wooden doors, with huge gilded dragons in high relief, opened into apartments on the right and left of this splendid hall. These portals were always thrown wide, and heavily padded satin portières hung from the lintels. The front and rear of the hall was almost entirely of glass, with the pillars that supported the roof standing clear between the windows—the lower half of plate-glass, the upper, of transparent Korean paper.
The apartments to the right, where, at a sign from Her Majesty, I followed the Ladies, were her day-rooms. Her sitting-room, projecting on the verandah, brilliantly lighted by two sides of windows, was in dazzling contrast to the somber splendor of the Throne-room. The sun pouring through the windows, the gay flowers and growing plants, the fruits piled high in great painted bowls, the divans, beneath the windows, with satin cushions, the touches of femininity, the subtle perfume, even the small shrine to Buddha—everything bespoke the characteristics of its august mistress, who, in her hours of ease, loved sunshine and flowers, and reveled in beauty and perfume.
On entering, Her Majesty approached the small shrine, lighted three slender tapers of fragrant incense, and placed them upright in the perfumed ashes of the golden censer at the feet of Buddha. She rearranged the offerings, placed a picture of the Mother of Buddha behind the Image, and then stood in reverent attitude a few seconds before turning to her waiting tirewomen to have her outer garments removed.
As I had now learned that my interest in her surroundings pleased her, I looked around the room. It was as lofty as the Great Throne-room, but the rear wall was divided into two stories, and a hidden stairway led to