II. MONT VELAN 507

And so we did; but we couldn’t keep papa and mamma out of the drawing-room when they had done dinner, and I went back to Corpus, disconsolate.

Now, whether the Dean told the Princess himself, or whether Mrs. Liddell told, or the girls themselves, somehow this story got all round the dinner-table, and D’Israeli was perfect in every detail, in ten minutes, nobody knew how. When the Princess rose, there was clearly a feeling on her part of some kindness to me; and she came very soon, in the drawing-room, to receive the report of the Slade Professor.

32. Now, in the Deanery drawing-room, everybody in Oxford who hadn’t been at the dinner was waiting to have their slice of Princess-due officially-and to be certified in the papers next day. The Princess,-knowing whom she had to speak to,-might speak to, or mightn’t, without setting the whole of Oxford by the ears next day, simply walked to the people she chose to honour with audience, and stopped, to hear if they had anything to say. I saw my turn had come, and the revolving zodiac brought its fairest sign to me: she paused, and the attendant stars and terrestrial beings round, listened, to hear what the marmot-pup had to say for itself.

In the space of, say, a minute and a half, I told the Princess that Landscape-painting had been little cultivated by the Heads of Colleges,-that it had been still less cultivated by the Undergraduates, and that my young-lady pupils always expected me to teach them how to paint like Turner, in six lessons. Finding myself getting into difficulties, I stopped: the Princess, I suppose, felt I was getting her into difficulties too; so she bowed courteously, and went on-to the next Professor, in silence.

33. The crowd, which had expected a compliment to Her Royal Highness of best Modern Painters quality, was extremely disappointed: and a blank space seemed at once to form itself round me, when the door from the nurseries opened; and-enter Rhoda-in full dress!

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