“Arthur!  Arthur! and your father a clergyman.  It’s too dreadful!”

And the tender-hearted woman burst into tears.

But still weeping, she waved the picture in melancholy confirmation of her assertion.  Arthur was amused and perplexed.

“My dear aunt, what has put such a droll idea into your head?”

“Because—­because,” said Aunt Winnifred, sobbing and wiping her eyes, “because this picture, which you keep locked up so carefully, is a picture of the Holy Virgin.  Oh dear! just to think of it!”

There was a fresh burst of feeling from the honest and affectionate woman, who felt that to be a Roman Catholic was to be visibly sealed and stamped for eternal woe.  But there was an answering burst of laughter from Arthur, who staggered to a sofa, and lay upon his back shouting until the tears also rolled from his eyes.

His aunt stopped, appalled, and made up her mind that he was not only a Catholic but a madman.  Then, as Arthur grew more composed, he and his aunt looked at each other for some moments in silence.

“Aunt, you are right.  It is the Holy Virgin!”

“Oh!  Arthur,” she groaned.

“It is my Madonna!”

“Poor boy!” sighed she.

“It is the face I worship.”

“Arthur!  Arthur!” and his aunt despairingly patted her knees slowly with her hands.

“But her name is not Mary.”

Aunt Winnifred looked surprised.

“Her name is Diana.”

“Diana?” echoed his aunt, as if she were losing her mind.  “Oh!  I beg your pardon.  Then it’s only a portrait after all?  Yes, yes.  Diana who?”

Arthur Merlin curled one foot under him as he sat, and, lighting a fresh cigar, told Aunt Winnifred the lovely legend of Latmos—­talking of Diana and Endymion, and thinking of Hope Wayne and Arthur Merlin.

Aunt Winnifred listened with the utmost interest and patience.  Her nephew was eloquent.  Well, well, thought the old lady, if interest in his pursuit makes a great painter, my dear nephew will be a great man.  During the course of the story Arthur paused several times, evidently lost in reverie—­perhaps tracing the analogy.  When he ended there was a moment’s silence.  Then Aunt Winnifred looked kindly at him, and said: 

“Well?”

“Well,” said Arthur, as he uncurled his leg, and with a half sigh, as if it were pleasanter to tell old legends of love than to paint modern portraits.

“Is that the whole?”

“That is the whole.”

“Well; but Arthur, did she marry him after all?”

Arthur looked wistfully a moment at his aunt.

“Marry him!  Bless you, no, Aunt Winnifred.  She was a goddess.  Goddesses don’t marry.”

Aunt Winnifred did not answer.  Her eyes softened like eyes that see days and things far away—­like eyes in which shines the love of a heart that, under those conditions, would rather not be a goddess.