"So would I. Grape-shot is a matter of no consequence by comparison." "If the man had relations in the house whom it made my head ache to meet, I would still go. Nothing in the world, sir, ought to stand in the way of a blue dahlia." "Nothing," responded the Colonel, forgetting everything else in a sudden fervour of sympathetic enthusiasm. "You are quite convinced of that?" "Quite. How can you doubt me?" The aeronaut paused, and then planted this shot squarely in the Colonel's astonished person. "Then, uncle, you won't mind my saying that I am Reginald Hampton, and that it will be necessary for you to see the blue dahlia _and_ your sister in conjunction." The Colonel grew purple, then white; he stammered, and beat upon the table with his fingers, and talked in strange languages. But he had the good sense to see that he was cornered. Besides, what had his nephew ever done to him, and how could he help being proud of so unique an horticulturist? Finally, the Colonel reached out his hand across the table. "Confound you, boy, you've conquered me! I must see that dahlia!" he cried. "How to arrange matters floral when the merry month of July comes round, I can't guess," mused Reginald Hampton, as he lit a Manilla. "But sufficient for the day is the evil thereof, and my bounden duty is to marry the little girl in June." Which he did. THE MODERN MINIATURE CRAZE ILLUSTRATED BY CHARMING EXAMPLES. BY H. M. TINDALL. A painter once made a miniature of King Charles II. which was more or less of a caricature. "Is that like me?" said the King when he saw it. "Then, odd's fish, I'm an ugly fellow!" The remark recalls another made to our own Queen when she said to Chalon, the miniaturist, that photography would ruin his profession. "Ah! non, madame; photographie cannot flattère," was the confident reply. [Illustration: [_By M. Josephine Gibson._ "KATHLEEN".] These comments seem to imply that miniatures make either "ugly fellows" or flattered dames, which is by no means true. But in selecting those which accompany this article, we sought for pretty faces, and decided to admit no "fellows" of any sort except one--no less than a Lord Chief Justice. The very marked attention which the miniatures in the Royal Academy attracted this year is one of many things which show how great a revival there has been in the taste for miniatures--a revival which is one of the most significant features in the history of modern art. When photography appeared, it had no difficulty for a time in sweeping miniatures out of the field, for many people preferred the novelty of an exact portrait to a "work of art." [Illustration: [_By M. Josephine Gibson._ "MA BELLE."]