pulling to pieces a recent exhibition of the works of a Royal Academician. “You would think you had got among half a dozen different sorts of people dressed for private theatricals,” said one of the youths. “Old models got up as Shakespearian kings, and that sort of thing. _You_ know, Mrs. Sandford; conventional groups trying to look as if they were historical.” “I remember Mr. White’s pictures very well,” said Mrs. Sandford. “I used to think them beautiful. We all rushed to see what he had in the exhibition, upon the private view day, when I did not know so much about it as I do now.” “Ah, yes; before you knew so much about it,” said the art authority. “You would think very differently to-day.” “The whole school is like that,” said another. “Historical painting is gone out like historical novel-writing. The public is tired of costume. Life is too short for that sort of thing. We want a far more profound knowledge of the human figure and beauty in the abstract----” “Stuff!” said Harry; “the British public doesn’t want your nudities, whatever you may think.” “The British public likes babies, and sick girls getting well, and beautiful young gentlemen saying eternal adieux to lovely young ladies,” said one of the girls. “To be sure, that sort of thing always goes on; but everybody must feel that in cultured circles there is a far greater sense of the beauty of colour for itself and art for art than in those ridiculous old days when the subject was everything----” “You confuse me with your new lights,” said Mrs. Sandford. “I always did think there was a great deal in a good subject.” “My dear Mrs. Sandford!” cried one of the young men, laughing; while another added, with the solemnity of his kind-- “People really did think so at one time. It was a genuine belief so long as it lasted. I am not one of those who laugh at faith so _naïf_. Whatever is true even for a time has a right to be respected,” said this profound young man. Mr. Sandford came in at this point, having paused a little to enjoy the fun, as he said to himself. It was wonderful to hear how they chattered--these babes. “I am glad to hear that you are all so tolerant of the old fogeys,” he said, with a laugh as he showed himself. And one at least of the young men had the good taste to jump up as if he were ashamed of himself, and to take his legs out of the way. “I suppose that’s the new creed that those fellows were giving forth,” he said to Jack, when the other young men were gone. “Oh, I don’t know, sir,” said Jack, with an embarrassed laugh. “We all of us say our say.” “But that is the say of most of you, I suppose,” said his father. “Well, sir, I suppose every generation has its own standard. ‘The old order changeth,’ don’t you know--in art as well as in other things.”