Though I did not work on the portrait during the New Year’s festivities, it was now really advancing. When Her Majesty saw how the hands looked when they were drawn in, with the palms of the hands hidden by the long fur undersleeves, in the position I had dared to find fault with at the first sitting, she at once suggested having the fur undersleeves taken off, but she still said nothing about changing the position of the hands, though I saw she had her doubts about them, and I felt confident her good taste would finally prevail and she would want them changed. I painted them in with a thin wash of color, knowing they would be changed later. A few days after this, she remarked that my “idea about the position of the hands was not bad,” and suggested that the left hand “would look well on a cushion.” I made this change in the small study, much to her satisfaction, and then did the hands likewise in the large portrait. The New Year festivities were hardly over before the Empress Dowager decided to move the Court to the Sea Palace. This Palace, though not so much a favorite with her as the Summer Palace, she liked better than the Winter Palace; the latter’s small, shut-in courts, walled-in walks, and rigid traditions seemed to depress her. At the Sea Palace she had gardens for her promenades and there was a lake. It was not so beautiful as the Summer Palace, but was an improvement over the Winter Palace. This move to the Sea Palace necessitated another change of studio for me, just as I was comfortably installed in my quarters in the Winter Palace, and had begun to progress with my work. I knew I should be obliged to have the new place arranged with upper glass windows and that I would again lose time, and the date of the opening of the St. Louis Exposition was approaching! But there was no help for it; I must go with the Court to the Sea Palace. I was told that there I was to have a magnificent pavilion on the lake, with a perfect light for painting. As to the pavilion’s being magnificent, I had no doubt, but I did doubt, from past experiences, whether the light would be all that could be desired. One morning our chairs carried us to the Sea Palace instead of to the Winter Palace. All my painting things, materials, canvases, as well as Her Majesty’s Throne, on which she was seated for the portrait, had been moved. Not the smallest piece of paper, nor even a bit of charcoal was missing. I had painted until the last moment at the Winter Palace, the day before; and early the next morning my things were in perfect order--the portrait on the easel, and the Throne in the proper position in my quarters at the Sea Palace. It was an “Aladdin’s-Lamp” move.