The reply to this question, I thought, would settle the matter one way or the other. "No," said he. "It is your wish, and also ours, that you should be differently clothed at once, and the garments you require would be made for you immediately." "Then," said I, taking the desperate plunge, "I should like to have them as soon as possible, and I am ready to commence work at once." "You shall commence to-morrow morning," he answered, smiling at my impetuosity. "The daughters of the house, whose province it is to make these things, shall also suspend other work until your garments are finished. And now, my son, from this evening you are one of the house and one of us, and the things which we possess you also possess in common with us." I rose and thanked him. He too rose, and, after looking round on us with a fatherly smile, went away to the interior of the house. Chapter 5 When he was gone, and Yoletta had followed, leaving some of the others still studying those wretched sovereigns, I sat down again and rested my chin on my hand; for I was now thinking--deeply: thinking on the terms of the agreement. "I daresay I have succeeded in making a precious ass of myself," was the mental reflection that occurred to me--one I had not infrequently made, and, what is more, been justified in making on former occasions. Then, remembering that I had come to supper with an extravagant appetite, it struck me that my host, quietly observant, had, when proposing terms, taken into account the quantity of food necessary for my sustenance. I regretted too late that I had not exercised more restraint; but the hungry man does not and cannot consider consequences, else a certain hairy gentleman who figures in ancient history had never lent himself to that nefarious compact, which gave so great an advantage to a younger but sleek and well-nourished brother. In spite of all this, I felt a secret satisfaction in the thought of the clothes, and it was also good to know that the nature of the work I had undertaken would not lower my status in the house. Occupied with these reflections, I had failed to observe that the company had gradually been drifting away until but one person was left with me--the young man who had talked with me before. On his invitation I now rose, put by my money, and followed him. Returning by the hall we went through a passage and entered a room of vast extent, which in its form and great length and high arched roof was like the nave of a cathedral. And yet how unlike in that something ethereal in its aspect, as of a nave in a cloud cathedral, its far-stretching shining floors and walls and columns, pure white and pearl-gray, faintly touched with colors of exquisite delicacy. And over it all was the roof of white or pale gray glass tinged with golden-red--the roof which I had seen from the outside when it seemed to me like a cloud resting on the stony summit of a hill.