The face of the magnificent creature at the Prodigal's left hand
is a wondrous piece of drawing. It is thrown back against him
and from the spectator, in order that she may look up into his
face--at the moment a dissipated, spiritless face, without even
the flush of the wine which dyes her's so rosily--a face at once
weak and weary, and yet revealing a possible intensity, indeed,
the face of a French woman who "has lived," rather than that of a
man.

Up to this centre leads the other groups. Below, and seated on
the rich rugs which cover the marble pavement, musicians
and singers pause to listen to impassioned words from a
laurel-crowned poet, while further on a sort of orchestra
plays time for the sensuous dance of lithe-bodied Oriental
dancers--each woman of them more ravishing than the other. Minor
incidents, like dice-play and love-making, give interest to the
remaining space, and keep up the revel.

Throughout, the drawing is true, and good, and graceful. The
hands of the figures demand especial mention. The hand of one of
the women, near the central group, grasped by her lover at the
wrist as he kisses her shoulder, is particularly exquisite
in form and color; the more remarkable, perhaps, because the
position of it is so trying in nature and so difficult to draw.

The type of feature chosen for the women, the dancing girls
excepted, is essentially Gallic. As remarked before, the face
of the Prodigal, also, is French; but the musicians and the poet
have faces of their own which seem to belong to the university of