Rossetti's connection with Oxford, and its intercalation in his work, does not end with the Union paintings. It was destined to furnish him with a more lasting influence--a face that to the end of his life haunted his pictures with an austere and solemn beauty, dominating and transforming all other kinds, so as even to give rise to the suggestion--a shallow and ignorant one, it is true--that he painted but one type of face. It was at the theatre, one night in the summer of 1857, that Rossetti and Burne-Jones found themselves sitting near two youthful Misses Burden, daughters of an Oxford resident, the elder of whom, by her striking features and wealth of dark wavy hair, appealed so forcibly to Rossetti's painter eye that he obtained an introduction in order to ask for sittings. A pen-and-ink head called _Queen Guenevere_, now in the National Gallery at Dublin, and evidently intended to replace the earlier studies done for _Launcelot at the Shrine_, was one of the first fruits of this acquaintance, which, for the rest, does not seem to have become really prolific of results until several years later, when Rossetti's wife was dead. In the meantime William Morris, whose admiration went even further, had married Miss Burden, and the casual relationship of painter and sitter which existed between her and Rossetti deepened into a friendship, in which Miss Siddal participated, both up to and after her marriage. CHAPTER VI WORK FROM 1858 TO 1862 The year 1858, while the Oxford affair was still in train, saw the completion of two pen-and-ink drawings which had been in hand a long time. These were _Hamlet and Ophelia_ and _Mary Magdalene at the Door of Simon the Pharisee_. [Illustration: MARY MAGDALENE AT THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE.] The drawing of _Mary Magdalene_, perhaps the most perfect of all Rossetti's early works, was begun at least by 1853, and continued to occupy his thoughts in one form or another for many years. Rossetti wrote a sonnet for the picture, which is found in his first volume, called "Poems." Another subject finished in 1858 was _Mary in the House of John_. The scene is at late twilight, or in an eastern night, the red glow of the sky casting a purple light over the clustered dwellings of Nazareth, with deep blue hills beyond. In the interior of the room are Mary and St. John, the latter seated in shadow, engaged in striking light from a flint; whilst Mary, standing before the tall window, fills a hanging lamp from a jar of oil. Another important item to be recorded under 1858 is a water-colour called _Before the Battle_, painted for Rossetti's American friend, Professor Norton, of Harvard.