CHAPTER XXII. 185 PALACE CUSTOMS Early Rising--When the Empress Dowager Sleeps--Her Bedroom-- Irregular Hours except for the Audience--Domestic Duties-- Her Favorite Game--Her Luck--Her Meals--Conventions Observed at the Empress Dowager’s Table--Her Dishes--The Hour of the Siesta--Her Promenades--The Days of the Theater--When Their Majesties Dine Together--Rigorous Observance of Fasts at the Table of the Empress Dowager--Court Etiquette--The Graceful Bow--Rigid Observance of Court Customs--Her Majesty’s Reproof of Too Indulgent Mother. CHAPTER XXIII. 194 HER MAJESTY’S ANXIETY--HER BIRTHDAY Her Anxiety--Exterior and Interior Troubles--Preparations for Her Majesty’s Birthday--Her Desire to Have Everything as Simple as Possible and to Spare Expense--The Emperor’s Wish to Celebrate with the Usual Pomp, and Desire to Bestow a New Title upon the Empress Dowager--Difference of Her Majesty’s Interest in her Own and the Emperor’s Birthday-- When She Received the Congratulations--Early Hour of Congratulation--The Interior of the Throne-room and Decorations for the Birthday--Winter Court Dress of the Ladies--The Empress Dowager’s Fatigue. CHAPTER XXIV. 200 THE WINTER PALACE The Empress Dowager’s Love of the Summer Palace--Return to Peking--Young Empress and Ladies Precede and Receive Her on the Threshold of her Own Throne-room--City of Peking, the Palace within the Forbidden City--Its many Walls within Walls--The Guard-Houses--The Ceremony of Reception--The Throne-room of the Winter Palace--The Interior Dome--Her Majesty’s Sitting-room--Private Chapel--Portraits of Queen Victoria--The Three Great Halls--The Spirit-Stairway--The Central Hall--Presents from European Royalties--Where I was to Paint--The Emperor’s Precincts--Tradition at the Winter Palace. CHAPTER XXV. 211 PEKING--BEGINNING THE PORTRAIT FOR ST. LOUIS Legation Quarter--Morning Ride to the Palace--Splendid Walls of the Palace and City--The Streets in the Forbidden City--A Funeral--The Mongolians--Beggars at the Gate-- Unsatisfactoriness of Studio at Winter Palace--Her Majesty Orders It Remodeled--Beginning Portrait for St. Louis-- Imperial Paraphernalia and Insignia of Royalty--Importance of Propriety--The Throne--Her Majesty’s Costume for the Portrait--Pearl Mantle--First Sketch--Stretching the Great Canvas.