erfectly
that she does not seem to endure. In this representation the
lion shows you the mental condition which lies hid behind that
fair, stern front. Now is Marie Antoinette like that?' He
turned the pictures again.

'I cannot tell!' said Wych Hazel. 'One minute her fortitude
looks just like pride,--and then when you remember all she had
to bear, it's not strange if she called up pride to help her.
But it is not my ideal yet.'

'I think it _is_ pride,' said Rollo. 'So it looks to me. Pride
and grief facing down death and humiliation. Marie Theresa's
daughter and Louis Capet's queen acknowledging no degradation
before her enemies--giving them no triumph that she could help.
But that is not my ideal either.'

He brought out another print.

'I always like that,' said Primrose.

'I do not know it,' said Wych Hazel.

'Don't you? it is very common. It is the eve of St.
Bartholomew. This Catholic girl wants to tie a white favour
round he lover's arm, to save him from the massacre soon to
begin. She has had the misfortune to love a Huguenot. White
favours, you remember, were the mark by which the Catholics
were to know each other in the confusion.'

'And he will not let her. Was it a misfortune, I wonder?'

'What?' said Primrose.

'To love somebody so much nobler than herself. How gentle he
is in his earnestness!'

'Don't be hard upon her,' said Rollo. 'Are you sure you
wouldn't do so in her place?'

'No,--' she said, looking gravely up at him.

'She knew it was death to go without that white handkerchief.'

'But,' said Primrose softly, 'wouldn't you rather have him die
true, than live dishonoured?'

'I think I should have tried,' said Wych Hazel,--'knowing I
should fail. And then I should have thrown away my own favour,
and gone with him wherever he went.'

'He wouldn't have let you do that either,' said Rollo.

'Then he would not have loved me as I loved him,' said the
girl, very decidedly.

'He'd have been a pretty fellow!' said Rollo, as he turned the
next print. It was a contrast to the St. Bartholomew; a
Madonna and child, from Fra Bartholomeo, at which they were
all content to look silently. Rollo began to talk, then,
instead of asking questions, and made himself very
interesting. So much he knew of art matters, so many a story
and legend he could tell about the masters, and so well he
could help the less initiated to enjoy and understand the
work. So letting himself out in a sort of play-fas