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Rh Good portrait-painters scarce. More orders to be had there than here. Fat aldermen, and fat aldermen's wives—orders without end for you."

Baring. "I shall never paint subjects that are uncongenial to me. Franz Hals could paint a fat burgher, and make a splendid thing of him. I could not. As to exhibiting—there is great jealousy of foreigners with you."

Elton. "Quite a mistake. Sargent—Alma Tadema—Boehm—great favourites. All nonsense. And if you want beauty—we have the most beautiful women in the world. Isn't it so, Miss Shaw?"

Elisa. "I don't know; I suppose so. But I have never seen any of the famous beauties—only their photographs; and I remember once" (with a smile) "a lady I admired you would not admit was beautiful."

Elton. "Oh! Miss Palliser? A painted doll—no. Don't admire artifice—give me nature."

''Mdme. de B. "Englishmen call corsets 'artifice,' I believe. We call the arrangement of the fat—the placing of the figure—art''. As long as we wear clothes, it id useless to talk about 'nature.

Elton. "Quite useless to talk about it, madame. I agree with you."

But here the contention of sharp-pitched voices which arose rendered it difficult to separate any individual utterance from the tangled skein. Mesdames Martineau and Clinchaut were understood to support Madame de Belcour, who boldly announced that all the resources of art which made a woman look better were legitimate. Anatole Doucet, in his most dramatic manner, boomed