BEFORE THE BURNE-JONESES.
A Fiancé. This is the "Wheel of Fortune," EMILY, you see. (Reads.) "Sad, but inexorable, the fateful figure turns the wheel. The sceptred King, once uppermost, is now beneath his Slave ... while beneath the King is seen the laurelled head of the Poet."
His Fiancée (who would be charming if she would not try—against Nature—to be funny.) It's a kind of giddy-go-round then, I suppose; or is it BURNE-JONES's idea of a revolution—don't you see—revolving?
Fiancé (who makes a practice—even already—of discouraging these sallies.) It's only an allegorical way of representing that the Slave's turn has come to triumph.
Fiancée. Well, I don't see that he has much to triumph about—he's tied on like the rest of them, and it must be just as uncomfortable on the top of that wheel as the bottom.
[Her Fiancé recognises that allegory is thrown away upon her, and proposes to take her into the Hall and show her Gog and Magog.
A Niece (to an Impenetrable Relative—whom she plants, like a heavy piece of ordnance, in front of a particular canvas). There, Aunt, what do you think of that now?
The Aunt (after solemnly staring at it with a conscientious effort to take it in.) Well, my dear, I must say it—it's very 'ighly varnished. [She is taken home as hopeless.