“No,” I whispered; “it’s my portrait day, but don’t betray me. Good-bye.”

“Don’t you be down in the mouth,” he laughed out, as I walked away more light-hearted than I had been for months.[2]

When Isabella found her murdered lover’s grave in the forest she brought home his head in anxious secrecy.

“Then in a silken scarf—sweet with the dews
Of precious flowers pluck’d in Araby,
And divine liquids come with odorous ooze
Through the cold serpent pipe refreshfully,—
She wrapp’d it up; and for its tomb did choose
A garden pot, wherein she laid it by,
And cover’d it with mould, and o’er it set
Sweet Basil, which her tears kept ever wet.

And she forgot the stars, the moon, and sun,
And she forgot the blue above the trees,
And she forgot the dells where waters run,
And she forgot the chilly autumn breeze;
She had no knowledge when the day was done,
And the new morn she saw not: but in peace
Hung over her sweet Basil evermore
And moisten’d it with tears unto the core.”
Keats.

The picture is lent by Mrs. James Hall to the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

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Please click [here] for a modern image of the painting.

At the next examination Hunt passed. “I told you so. I knew you’d soon be in,” said Millais, when next they met at the Academy. It was the beginning of one of those rare friendships that make high things possible.

In the room at 83 Gower Street, where Millais painted while his mother sat at her work-table, Holman Hunt was now often to be found.