In the companion-picture, “Ecce Ancilla Domini” (“Behold the handmaid of the Lord!”) Rossetti repeats and develops much of the same symbolism in the accessories of the painting, but the universal meaning of the Virgin’s call is far more clearly brought out. The design differs from all familiar versions of the Annunciation in that the message is delivered to Mary as she wakes out of sleep, and that she is depicted, not among beautiful and well-ordered surroundings, but in a poor and bare chamber, rising, half-awake, in a humble pallet-bed, and sitting awed before the angel whose presence, perhaps, is but the visualized memory of her dream. The rapt stillness of her look recalls the pregnant line in which Byron speaks of a troubled waking,—“to know the sense of pain without the cause.” In Mary’s mind there should rather be a sense of joy without the cause; but even in her joy there lies a mystery, a burden of responsibility and foreboded sorrow, that makes it heavy to bear. It is as if some simple girl, waking to the golden glories of a summer morn, should wake at the same time to the thought of the world’s pain, and realize, in a sudden exaltation of pity and love, that somehow, by whatever path of grief and loss, her purity, her goodness, must help humanity and bless the race to be. The angel at her side is a girl-child no longer, but a youth, full of strength and graciousness, as if to suggest that the sanctities of manhood are now to be revealed to the maid. In his hand the radiant Gabriel holds the full-grown and gathered lily, whose image is now completed on the embroidered cloth, which hangs near the bed. The dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, flies in at the window, and the light is soft and warm from the sun-bathed landscape without.