Especially resplendent was the bird's head, with its gleaming red circle around the brightly shining eye.

This eye glowed and sparkled in the flickering light of the crackling wood fire until it seemed fairly endowed with life and vision.
One evening, as the princess was watching this glowing eye, it suddenly vanished from the bird's head and left a dark hole in its place.

Then, as if not content with this marvellous demonstration, the phoenix next took flight bodily and disappeared, apparently up the chimney, with a rattling, rasping sound, as of the creaking of cogged wheels, leaving a wide opening where it had been.

The coals which still glowed on the hearth presently died with a hissing noise, and only the soft light of the shaded lamp diffused itself through the room.

Out of the mysterious depths of the fireplace stepped the white-clad form of a woman.
"I am the Marchioness Caldariva," announced the unbidden guest.
The suddenness and the mystery of it all, as well as the name that greeted her ears, might well have startled the Princess Blanka.