't it?

_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