tammered, and beat upon the
table with his fingers, and talked in strange languages. But he had the
good sense to see that he was cornered. Besides, what had his nephew
ever done to him, and how could he help being proud of so unique an
horticulturist?

Finally, the Colonel reached out his hand across the table.

"Confound you, boy, you've conquered me! I must see that dahlia!" he
cried.

"How to arrange matters floral when the merry month of July comes round,
I can't guess," mused Reginald Hampton, as he lit a Manilla. "But
sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and my bounden duty is to
marry the little girl in June."

Which he did.

THE MODERN MINIATURE CRAZE

ILLUSTRATED BY CHARMING EXAMPLES.

BY H. M. TINDALL.

A painter once made a miniature of King Charles II. which was more or
less of a caricature. "Is that like me?" said the King when he saw it.
"Then, odd's fish, I'm an ugly fellow!"

The remark recalls another made to our own Queen when she said to
Chalon, the miniaturist, that photography would ruin his profession.

"Ah! non, madame; photographie cannot flattere," was the confident
reply.

[Illustration: [_By M. Josephine Gibson._

"KATHLEEN".]

These comments seem to imply that miniatures make either "ugly fellows"
or flattered dames, which is by no means true. But in selecting those
which accompany this article, we sought for pretty faces, and decided to
admit no "fellows" of any sort except one--no less than a Lord Chief
Justice.

The very marked attention which the miniatures in the Royal Academy
attracted this year is one of many things which show how great a revival
there has been in the taste for miniatures--a revival which is one of
the most significant features in the history of modern art.

When photography appeared, it had no difficulty for a time in sweeping
miniatures out of the field, for many people preferred the novelty of an
exact portrait to a "work of art."

[Illustration: [_By M. Josephine Gibson._

"MA BELLE."]

But the pendulum of taste has again swung back. We no longer accept a
coloured photograph as a substitute for a genuine miniature, but realise
that the two things are quite distinct. At the same time, there are
to-day a number of so-called miniaturists who content themselves with
copying photographs. But all those whose work is here represented
condemn the practice, and do their work from the life. This involves, of
course, several sittings