The Argosy — page 75: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

60 The Oleander. or find a stumbling-block in the difference between them in station. His art ennobled him, and made him the peer of all men. The portrait was a very simple one. Diana, in a gown of white satin, was standing, her graceful head crowned with its coronet of golden hair, her beautiful face upraised, her earnest, happy eyes— whose dark shadows caught and held so many changeful expressions— looking forth joyously; in one hand she held a spray of pale pink oleander bloom; and as a counterfoil to this fair woman in her shimmering robes, the young artist had introduced, with happy har- mony, a background of the dark shining oleander trees, their polished leaves of varying green relieving here and there the more sombre tones. For a few days all went well. Diana was pleased and flattered at being painted and adored at one and the same time, and with Millicent Denman enjoyed the hours of posing to the full) Then came a difficulty. Nature, not so willing to own the Lady Diana’s supreme sovereignty as were we poor mortals, refused to force into bloom, out of due season, the fragile oleander flowers. The trees were there in full magnificence of leaf, but neither blossom nor bud was discernible. Indeed Macduff, the old Scotch gardener, when impatiently ques- tioned by Diana as to the prospect of any flowers forthcoming, made the depressing statement that, though he had lived ten good years at Heron’s Court, his eyes had never seen any one of them in bloom, and to his thinking nothing short of a miracle would produce even the tiniest flower. Now Diana was a trifle vain, and what she had set her heart upon was to see her counterpart, in fairest guise, hung upon the Academy’s walls in the coming May. She knew that November would see them allon the wing for Italy, with no chance of a return until after Easter ; how then was her portrait to be accomplished, since, as we all know, it must go to be judged, two weeks before the great spring Festa, by the terrible forty who weigh out fame to the trembling aspirants at Burlington House? Millicent, however, rose to the occasion. She came dancing in one morning, with a sealed box in her hand addressed to the Lady Diana ; this, on being opened, displayed a spray of exquisite pink oleander in full bloom. There came no message with it, but Diana charged Millicent with the gift, and Millicent, looking pleased and proud, could only mutter something about Nice and the South of France, and the rail being wonderful now-a-days. When Tito came that day, the flower was carefully arranged to greet him, and the portrait made several great leaps towards completion. They had turned the morning room into a studio, and Diana had ordered the three great pots of oleanders to be brought from the winter-house and placed as a background to her charms. With these and the spray of blossom Tito would evolve wonders. The next day saw us as breathlessly eager over the portrait as Gomicbooks (E(e)