mptied the entire contents on the
stone flagging. Aunt Celia didn't notice; she had turned with the
verger, lest she should miss a single word of his inspired testimony. So
we scrambled up the articles together, the nice young man and I; and oh,
I hope I may never look upon his face again.

There were prayer-books and guide-books, a Bath bun, a bottle of
soda-mint tablets, a church calendar, a bit of gray frizz that Aunt
Celia pins into her cap when she is travelling in damp weather, a
spectacle-case, a brandy-flask, and a bon-bon-box, which broke and
scattered cloves and peppermint lozenges. (I hope he guessed Aunt Celia
is a dyspeptic, and not intemperate!) All this was hopelessly vulgar,
but I wouldn't have minded anything if there had not been a Duchess
novel. Of course he thought that it belonged to me. He couldn't have
known Aunt Celia was carrying it for that accidental Mrs. Benedict, with
whom she went to St. Cross Hospital.

After scooping the cloves out of the cracks in the stone flagging--and,
of course, he needn't have done this, unless he had an abnormal sense of
humour--he handed me the tattered, disreputable-looking copy of 'A
Modern Circe,' with a bow that wouldn't have disgraced a Chesterfield,
and then went back to his easel, while I fled after Aunt Celia and her
verger.

* * * * *

Memoranda: _The Winchester Cathedral has the longest nave. The inside is
more superb than the outside. Izaak Walton and Jane Austen are buried
here._

_He_

Winchester, _May 28_,
The White Swan.

As sure as my name is Jack Copley, I saw the prettiest girl in the world
to-day--an American, too, or I am greatly mistaken. It was in the
cathedral, where I have been sketching for several days. I was sitting
at the end of a bench, at afternoon service, when two ladies entered by
the side-door. The ancient maiden, evidently the head of the family,
settled herself devoutly, and the young one stole off by herself to one
of the old carved seats back of the choir. She was worse than pretty! I
made a memorandum of her during service, as she sat under the dark
carved-oak canopy, with this Latin inscription over her head:

Carlton cum
Dolby
Letania
IX Solidorum
Super Flumina
Confitebor tibi
Duc probati

There ought to be a law against a woman's making a picture of herself,
unless she is willing to allow an artist to 'fix her' properly in his
gallery of types.