Palace

On Madame de Mercœur's arrival at the palace she found the carriage and guards in waiting, the Queen having decided that she would do her niece the honour of going to meet her.

The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway,[…].

And this Great King was a far-way, tremendous, golden figure, moving in a splendor as of fairy tales; palaced marvelously, so travelers told, in cities compared with which even Athens seemed mean.

May, with her green lap full of sprouting leaves and bright blossoms, her song-birds making the orchards and meadows vocal, and rippling streams and cultivated gardens; June, with full-blown roses and humming-bees, plenteous meadows and wide cornfields, with embattled lines rising thick and green; August, with reddened orchards and heavy-headed harvests of grain, October, with yellow leaves and swart shadows; December, palaced in snow, and idly whistling through his numb fingers;-all have their various charm; and in the rose-bowers of summer, and as we spread our hands before the torches of winter, we say joyfully, "Thou hast made all things beautiful in their time."