essor gazed at them in turn; he literally could not find a word
for reply.

Then I, coming to the rescue, said: "I am very dull, I know, but pity my
dulness, and tell me why the skeleton was so important, and how they
knew it was so old."

The poor man, overcome by such crass ignorance, gazed at his ball and
socket joint and at our group in silence. Then, in a spiritless voice,
he said, "The bones surrounding the skeleton were those of animals now
extinct--animals that existed at a period heretofore supposed to have
been before that of man; but by their presence here they prove a
contemporary, and we therefore know that he existed at a much earlier
age of the world's history than we had imagined."

Verney now gave Janet the treasures he had found--some pieces of flint
about an inch long, rudely pointed at one end. "These," he said, "are
the knives of the primitive man."

"They are very disappointing," said Janet, surveying them as they lay in
the palm of her slender gray glove, buttoned half-way to the elbow.

"Did you expect carved handles and steel blades?" I said, smiling.

"And here are some nummulites," pursued Verney, taking a quantity of the
round coin-like shells from his pocket. "You might have a necklace made,
with the nummulites above and the flints below as pendants."

"And label it prehistoric; it would be quite as attractive as
preraphaelite," said Inness. "I don't know what _you_ think," he
continued, turning to Verney, "but to me there is nothing so ugly as the
way some of the girls--generally the tall ones--are getting themselves
up nowadays in what they call the preraphaelite style--a general effect
of awkward lankness as to shape and gown, a classic fillet, hair to the
eyebrows, and a gait not unlike that which would be produced by having
the arms tied together behind at the elbows. If your Botticelli is
responsible for this, his canvases should be demolished."

Verney laughed; he was at heart, I think, a strong preraphaelite both of
the present and the past; but how could he avow it when a reality so
charming and at the same time so unlike that type stood beside him?
Janet's costumes were not at all preraphaelite; they were
American-French.

We left the Red Rocks, and went slowly onward along the sea-shore
towards home. Miss Elaine, having first taken me aside to ask if I
thought it "quite proper," had challenged Inness to a rapid walk, and
soon carried him away from us and out of sight. On