"How well the paper speaks of him!" said Daphne, taking up the _Standard_, and dwelling with more pleasure than I cared to see on the flattering language bestowed on the artist. "Angelo isn't vain, that's easy to be seen. Didn't you notice how reluctant he was this morning to speak of his picture? One had to draw it out of him, as it were. I am glad he has made a name at last. 'There are not wanting tongues,'" she continued, reading from the paper, "'to say that it is not the work of Vasari at all.' What a shame to say that!" she ejaculated with considerable indignation. "When his pictures were not very good the critics sneered at him and called him 'Il Divino'; and now that he _has_ produced something good they suggest that some one else painted it for him. Just like the critics! Fancy Angelo being a descendant of the great Vasari, too!" "No great honour," I returned, as eager to depreciate the artist as Daphne was to exalt him. "His great ancestor's pictures have always been considered daubs; and as for the famous book, _Lives of the Painters_, it is supposed not to have been written by Vasari." Critics will bear me out in these statements; but Daphne scorned criticism, and would not listen to any reflections on Angelo's ancestor. "Ah! I suppose it's the case of Shakespeare _v._ Bacon over again. Well, for my part I believe in Shakespeare. Say good-night to papa for me." And she danced gaily off to bed at an earlier hour than usual. Was she going to dream of the artist? Now, ever since my interest had been roused in the critique of the picture my eyes had been fixed on the fireplace, where Angelo, after lighting his cigar, had thrown the burnt paper, and in one corner of the fender I had fancied I could perceive a charred piece of paper. Accordingly after Daphne had gone I pounced on this fragment. It crumbled to black powder in my hands, save one little unburnt piece. This piece contained six words only; yet they were sufficient to cause my pulse to throb more quickly: an Anglo-Indian officer to judge. That was all; and I had some difficulty in making out even those few words, owing to the blackened aspect of the paper. I did not doubt that they formed a part of the critique, and that the paragraph in which they occurred was one that the artist was anxious to conceal from us. The memory of my lost brother had been strangely revived by the events of the day, and the phrase "an Anglo-Indian officer" naturally and immediately associated itself with his name. It was impossible in my then state of ignorance to establish a connexion between my brother and Angelo's picture, and the various hypotheses I framed to account for the admission of his name into the art-critique would fill a chapter.