not seen you this fortnight past, and gave you up for lost.'

'Where do you come from, my dear master?' asked Claude.

'From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in
it,' answered he, smiling, and laying his finger on his lips, 'my
dear pupils. And you are both well and happy?'

'Perfectly, and doubly delighted at your presence to-day, for your
advice will come in a providential moment for my friend here.'

'Ah!' said the strange man, 'well met once more! So you are going
to turn painter?'

He bent a severe and searching look on Lancelot.

'You have a painter's face, young man,' he said; 'go on and prosper.
What branch of art do you intend to study?'

'The ancient Italian painters, as my first step.'

'Ancient? it is not four hundred years since Perugino died. But I
should suppose you do not intend to ignore classic art?'

'You have divined rightly. I wish, in the study of the antique, to
arrive at the primeval laws of unfallen human beauty.'

'Were Phidias and Praxiteles, then, so primeval? the world had
lasted many a thousand years before their turn came. If you intend
to begin at the beginning, why not go back at once to the garden of
Eden, and there study the true antique?'

'If there were but any relics of it,' said Lancelot, puzzled, and
laughing.

'You would find it very near you, young man, if you had but eyes to
see it.'

Claude Mellot laughed significantly, and Sabina clapped her little
hands.

'Yet till you take him with you, master, and show it to him, he must
needs be content with the Royal Academy and the Elgin marbles.'

'But to what branch of painting, pray,' said the master to Lancelot,
'will you apply your knowledge of the antique? Will you, like this
foolish fellow here' (with a kindly glance at Claude), 'fritter
yourself away on Nymphs and Venuses, in which neither he nor any one
else believes?'

'Historic art, as the highest,' answered Lancelot, 'is my ambition.'

'It is well to aim at the highest, but only when it is possible for
us. And how can such a school exist in England now? You English
must learn to understand your own history before you paint it.
Rather follow in the steps of your Turners, and Landseers, and
Standfields, and Creswicks, and add your contribution to the present
noble school of naturalist painters. That is the niche in the
temple which God has set you English to fill up just now. These
men's pati