ve Mr. Clement Scott thinks so," said Amarinth; "but then it
does not matter very much what Mr. Clement Scott thinks, does it? The
position of the critics always strikes me as very comic. They are for
ever running at the back of public opinion, and shouting 'come on!' or
'go back!' to those who are in front of them. If half of them had their
way, our young actors and actresses would play in Pinero's pieces as
Mrs. Siddons or Charles Kean played in the pieces of Shakespeare long
ago. A good many of them found their claims to attention on the horrible
fact that they once knew Charles Dickens, a circumstance of which they
ought rather to be ashamed. They are monotonous dwellers in an
unenlightened past like Mr. Sala, who is even more commonplace than the
books of which he is for ever talking. Mr. Joseph Knight is their oracle
at first nights, and some of them even labour under the wild impression
that Mr. Robert Buchanan can write good English, and that Mr. George R.
Sims--what would he be without the initial?--is a minor poet."

"Dear me! I am afraid we are all wrong," said Mrs. Windsor, still rather
vaguely; "but do you know, we ought really to be thinking of our walk up
Leith Hill. It is a lovely afternoon. Will you attempt it, Madame
Valtesi?"

"No, thank you. I think I must have been constructed, like Providence,
with a view to sitting down. Whoever thinks of the Deity as standing? I
will stay at home and read the last number of 'The Yellow Disaster.' I
want to see Mr. Aubrey Beardsley's idea of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He has drawn him sitting in a wheelbarrow in the gardens of Lambeth
Palace, with underneath him the motto, 'J'y suis, j'y reste.' I believe
he has on a black mask. Perhaps that is to conceal the likeness."

"I have seen it," Mrs. Windsor said; "it is very clever. There are only
three lines in the whole picture, two for the wheelbarrow and one for
the Archbishop."

"What exquisite simplicity!" said Lord Reggie, going out into the hall
to get his straw hat.

In the evening, when they assembled in the drawing-room for dinner, it
was found that both Mrs. Windsor and Madame Valtesi had put on simple
black dresses in honour of the curate. Lady Locke, although she never
wore widow's weeds, had given up colours since her husband's death. As
they waited for Mr. Smith's advent there was an air of decent
expectation about the party. Mr. Amarinth looked serious to heaviness.
Lord Reggie was pale, and see