lay shattered on the hearth. Dr.
Grey lifted the painting from the rubbish, and, as he turned the
canvas towards the light, Mrs. Gerome said,--

"'_Une tristesse implacable, une effroyable fatalite pese sui l'oeuvre
de l'artiste. Cela ressemble a une malediction amere, lancee sur le
sort de l'humanite._' There is, indeed, some fatality about that copy
of Durer's 'Knight, Death, and the Devil,' which seems really
ill-omened, for this is the second time it has fallen. Thank you, sir.
The frame only is injured, and I will not trouble you to remove it.
Let it lean against the grate, until I have it rehung more securely."

"It is too grim a picture for these walls, and stares at its
companions like the mummy at Egyptian banquets."

"On the contrary, it impresses me as grotesque in comparison with
Durer's 'Melancholy,' yonder, or with Holbein's 'Les Simulachres de la
mort.'"

"Durer's figure of 'Melancholy' has never satisfied me, and there is
more ferocity than sadness in the countenance, which would serve quite
as well for one of the Erinney hunting Orestes, even in the adytum at
Delphi. The face is more sinister than sorrowful."

"Since your opinion of that picture coincides so entirely with mine,
tell me whether I have successfully grasped Coleridge's dim ideal."

Mrs. Gerome drew from a corner of the rear room an easel containing a
finished but unframed picture; and, gathering up the lace curtain
drooping before the arch, she held the folds aside, to allow the light
to fall full on the canvas.

"Before you examine it, recall the description that suggested it."

"I am sorry to say that my recollection of the passage is exceedingly
vague and unsatisfactory. Will you oblige me by repeating it?"

"Excuse me; your hand is resting upon the book, which is open at the
fragment."

Dr. Grey bowed, and, lifting the volume from the table glanced
rapidly over the lines designated, then turned to the picture, where,
indeed,

"Stretched on a mouldering abbey's broadest wall,
Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steep,
Her folded arms wrapping her tattered pall,
Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep.
The fern was pressed beneath her hair,
The dark green adder's tongue was there;
And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak,
The long, lank leaf bowed fluttering o'er her cheek.
That pallid cheek was flushed; her eager look
Beamed eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought,
Imperfect sounds her moving