Though the hum and bustle of busy life swelled and deepened in the streets the light was not yet strong enough to penetrate the masses of heavy velvet which muffled three tall windows of a chamber overlooking the Thames, and a slope of rich, but trampled sward that rolled greenly down to its brink. So thick and deeply folded were the curtains that it was broad day in the streets, though the sun had not yet risen, before sufficient light penetrated the chamber to draw out the objects which it contained from the deep tranquil gloom that surrounded them. By degrees a soft, warm light came stealing through a fold or two of the crimson drapery as if a shower of wine were dashed against them, very faint and rich it was, but sufficient to reveal a mantelpiece of clouded marble surmounting an immense fire-place at one end of the room—tall chairs of dark wood, heavily covered with cushions of crimson leather enveloped with gold, standing in solemn magnificence around, and a massive bed supported by immense posts of ebony, each carved like the stems of a great vine twisted together and coiling upward to the ceiling, where they branched off and twined together, a superb cornice of foliage cut from the polished wood, and intermingled with clusters of fruit so roundly carved that they seemed ready to break loose from the rich workmanship of tendrils and leaves which bedded them. The broad footboard was carved to a perfect net-work; its glittering black only relieved by the Somerset crest exquisitely emblazoned in the centre. The head was surmounted by a slab of broad ebony even more elaborately wrought than the other, more nicely touched and interworked like a specimen of Chinese ivory. In the centre, just over the pillows, a basket of golden apples gleamed through the delicate dark tracery, which seemed to prison it, and caught the first faint light that struggled through the windows. As this light deepened and grew stronger within the room, a counterpane of purple velvet sweeping over the bed began to glow, as if the grapes above were red, and had been shaken during the night over the lovely girl who lay in an unquiet slumber beneath it. The counterpane was disturbed and lay in purple waves over the bed—for the Lady Jane Seymour had started up more than once during the morning, and after gazing wildly about in the dim light, sunk to her pillow again, in that state of unquiet drowsiness, which is neither wakefulness nor repose. Now and then, as she seemed most soundly asleep, her lips moved with restless murmurs, and her fair brow was knitted as if in pain beneath the crushed lace of her night-coif. She was lying thus with closed eyes, and yet scarcely asleep, when a door opened, and the old woman who had escaped from the riot on the previous day, stole softly into the chamber, bearing in her arms a bundle of green rushes and a basket of flowers—humble things, but fresh and with the night dew yet upon them.