Before this curtain sat a lady of honor.  She seemed a very great person indeed, her dress being inferior only to that of a queen in richness and elegance.  She had a double chin and a very large stomach, which in her day were considered quite suitable to a person in her position.

Somewhat out of keeping with the golden furniture and the rich tapestries was the great fireplace containing an almost commonplace crane and kettle, and bordered by irregular areas of smoked wood and stone, indicating that the ventilation of the room needed looking after in the worst way.

In addition to the lady of honor there were other persons in the room:  a scullion, or cook, with rather comical features and a red nose, who sat before the fireplace; a line of guards in mailed armor who were stationed around the walls, finely erect, with spears held perpendicularly, their ends resting on the floor; and a herald, or messenger, standing just inside an inner door.

But—­wonderful to relate—­the lady of honor, the scullion, the guards in mail, and the herald, were all sound asleep!  Moreover, they had all been sound asleep for precisely one hundred years.

I should add that two other individuals already known to us were in the room:  the Masked Lady and Mr. Literal.  The Masked Lady held in her hands a time-glass precisely like an hourglass in every respect, save that it was designed to measure the passage of a full century.  The last grains of sand were just falling when she looked up, startled, because Mr. Literal had broken the stillness by yawning.  He was plainly bored, and he was looking about the room at the various sleepers as if he were thoroughly tired of them all.

After Mr. Literal had finished his yawn a truly unearthly silence reigned.  There wasn’t so much as the ticking of a clock or the falling of embers in the fireplace.  Silence, a long, long silence.

Then a distant door opened and closed sharply.  There was the muffled tramp of many feet.  And then—­what have we here?  Everychild entered the room!

He was followed instantly by Cinderella, Hansel and Grettel, Will o’Dreams, Prince Arthur, Tom Hubbard, Little Bo-Peep, Little Boy Blue, the children of the Old Woman who lived in a shoe (who numbered some forty boys and girls all told), and last of all, the little black dog.

There was necessarily a good deal of bustle and noise while the members of the band were entering; but when Everychild had had time to look about him he was smitten with silence, and all his companions suddenly became as quiet as mice.

Then Everychild perceived the Masked Lady, and for once he was very glad to see her.  He approached her eagerly, if somewhat timidly.

“What is this strange place?” he whispered.

And as the Masked Lady did not reply to him, he turned to Cinderella.  “Am I—­are we—­dreaming?” he asked.

Cinderella reassured him promptly.  “We are not dreaming,” she said.  “I have seen other places as beautiful.  The ballroom where I danced—­it might have been in this very castle.  Yet how strange it is to find them all asleep!” And she gazed about the room with amused wonder.