A Ponderous Person (finding himself in front of “The Vale of Rest").  Ha!—­what are those two Nuns up to?

His Companion.  Digging their own graves, I think.

The Pond.  P. (with a supreme mental effort).  Oh, Cremation, eh?

    [Goes out, conceiving that he has sacrificed at the shrine of
    Art sufficiently for one afternoon.

Young Discount (to Young TURNOVER—­before “Claudio and Isabella").  Something out of SHAKSPEARE here, you see.

Young Turnover.  Yairss. (Giving Claudio a perfunctory attention.) Wants his hair raking, don’t he?  Not much in my line, this sort of subject.

Young Disc. Nor yet mine—­takes too much time making it out, y’know. This ain’t bad—­“Venetian Washerwomen”—­is that the way they get up linen over there?

Young Turn. (who has “done” Italy) Pretty much. (By way of excuse for them.) They’re very al fresco out in those parts, y’ know.  Here’s a Market-place in Italy, next to it.  Yes, that’s just like they are.  They bring out all those old umbrellas and stalls and baskets twice a-week, and clear ’em all off again next day, so that you’d hardly know they’d been there!

Young Disc. (intelligently).  I see.  After Yarmouth style.

Young Turn. Well, something that way—­only rather different style, y’ know.

BEFORE “THE HUGUENOT.”

An Appreciative Lady.  Ah! yes, it is wonderfully painted! Isn’t it lovely the way that figured silk is done?  You can hardly tell it isn’t real, and the plush coat he’s wearing; such an exquisite shade of violet, and the ivy-leaves, and the nasturtiums and the old red brick; yes, it’s very beautiful—­and yet, do you know, (meditatively) I almost think it’s prettier in the engravings!

BEFORE THE BURNE-JONESES.

A Fiance.  This is the “Wheel of Fortune,” EMILY, you see. (Reads.) “Sad, but inexorable, the fateful figure turns the wheel.  The sceptred King, once uppermost, is now beneath his Slave ... while beneath the King is seen the laurelled head of the Poet.”

His Fiancee (who would be charming if she would not try—­against Nature—­to be funny.) It’s a kind of giddy-go-round then, I suppose; or is it BURNE-JONES’s idea of a revolution—­don’t you see—­revolving?

Fiance (who makes a practice—­even already—­of discouraging these sallies.) It’s only an allegorical way of representing that the Slave’s turn has come to triumph.

Fiancee.  Well, I don’t see that he has much to triumph about—­he’s tied on like the rest of them, and it must be just as uncomfortable on the top of that wheel as the bottom.

    [Her Fiance recognises that allegory is thrown away upon
    her, and proposes to take her into the Hall and show her Gog
    and Magog.