“You know,” she said, commencing in a low tone, so as not to disturb the others, and with the introductory long breath of the conventional story-teller, “we have been through the castle three times, so I really know a great deal about it, and it is very fortunate that the Queen happened to be in London, or we shouldn't have seen some of the rooms at all.”
“In the first place, Donald, you know how the castle looks from the outside—the beautiful gray stone walls and the towers with the turrets everywhere you turn.”
“What are turrets?” asked Donald, giving evidence at once of such an eager desire to acquire information as Marie-Celeste feared in the long run might prove rather annoying.
“Oh, I believe it's a round wall that goes like that on the top!” tracing an imaginary line in the air with one finger. “Well, you go in at one of the gates, and it's just as though you were in a little city of itself. There are roadways and sidewalks and street lamps, and a big church right in front of you, and people coming and going, just like a city. And there's a guard at the gate, and there are guards everywhere. They didn't look very fine, though, for every time they've had on their coats for fear of rain, and seemed all coat and gloves. You know how horrid white cotton gloves are?”
For the sake of agreement Donald nodded assent, but he should have thought himself that white gloves of any sort would have been quite imposing, and above all on a soldier.
“Well, the first place we went into was the Albert Chapel; and oh, Donald, but it's beautiful! There's a marble floor shaped in diamonds and circles, and there are such beautiful stained-glass windows, and under each window a picture of something from the Bible, and these pictures are made of different sorts of marble, somehow, and there's a great deal of gold in them, that makes them more beautiful still. But, best of all, because I love anything that has to do with real people, there is a portrait in marble right underneath each window of one of the Queen's children. They are raised, you know, from a flat background, not cut all round like a statue.”
“Yes, I understand,” really very much interested; “but why do they call it the Albert Chapel?”