press. But it was
love's labour lost. The certain person is an ornament of the uncertain
sex, and didn't turn up. So, to console myself, I came here."

Annunziata looked round the room again. "What is there here that can
console you?"

"These," said John. His hand swept the pictured walls.

"The paintings?" said she, following his gesture. "How can they console
you?"

"They're so well painted," said he, fondly studying the soft-coloured
canvases. "Besides, these ladies are dead. I like dead ladies."

Annunziata looked critically at the pictures, and then at him with
solemn meaning. "They are very pretty--but they are not dead," she
pronounced in her deepest voice.

"Not dead?" echoed John, astonished. "Aren't they?"

"No," said she, with a slow shake of the head.

"Dear me," said he. "And, when they're alone here and no one's looking,
do you think they come down from their frames and dance? It must be a
sight worth seeing."

"No," said Annunziata. "These are only their pictures. They cannot come
down from their frames. But the ladies themselves are not dead. Some of
them are still in Purgatory, perhaps. We should pray for them." She
made, in parenthesis as it were, a pious sign of the Cross. "Some are
perhaps already in Heaven. We should ask their prayers. And others are
perhaps in Hell," she pursued, inexorable theologian that she was. "But
none of them is dead. No one is dead. There's no such thing as being
dead."

"But then," puzzled John, "what is it that people mean when they talk of
Death?"

"I will tell you," said Annunziata, her eyes heavy with thought.
"Listen, and I will tell you." She seated herself on the big round
ottoman, and raised her face to his. "Have you ever been at a
pantomime?" she asked.

"Yes," said John, wondering what could possibly be coming.

"Have you been at the pantomime," she continued earnestly, "when there
was what they call a transformation-scene?"

"Yes," said John.

"Well," said she, "last winter I was taken to the pantomime at Bergamo,
and I saw a transformation-scene. You ask me, what is Death? It is
exactly like a transformation-scene. At the pantomime the scene was just
like the world. There were trees, and houses, and people, common people,
like any one. Then suddenly click! Oh, it was wonderful. Everything was
changed. The trees had leaves of gold and silver, and the houses were
like fairy palaces, and there were strange lights, red and blue, and
there were