But lo, here come a couple, as near ideals as any in these degenerate days--the two poles of beauty: the milieu of which would be Venus with us Pagans, or the Virgin Mary with the Catholics.

Look at them! Honoria the dark--symbolic of passionate depth; Argemone the fair, type of intellectual light! Oh, that I were a Zeuxis to unite them instead of having to paint them in two separate pictures, and split perfection in half, as everything is split in this piecemeal world!' 'You will have the honour of a sitting this afternoon, I suppose, from both beauties ?' 'I hope so, for my own sake.

There is no path left to immortality, or bread either, now for us poor artists but portrait-painting.' 'I envy you your path, when it leads through such Elysiums,' said Lancelot.
'Come here, gentlemen both!' cried Argemone from the bridge.
'Fairly caught!' grumbled Lancelot.

'You must go, at least; my lameness will excuse me, I hope.' The two ladies were accompanied by Bracebridge, a gazelle which he had given Argemone, and a certain miserable cur of Honoria's adopting, who plays an important part in this story, and, therefore, deserves a little notice.

Honoria had rescued him from a watery death in the village pond, by means of the colonel, who had revenged himself for a pair of wet feet by utterly corrupting the dog's morals, and teaching him every week to answer to some fresh scandalous name.
But Lancelot was not to escape.