upon the shifty weather-vanes and long-pointed windows of the tower
on the square--from which the Angelus is sounding--with a momentary
promise of a fine night. I prefer the Salut at Saint Vaast. The
walk thither is a longer one, and I have a fancy always that I may
meet Antony Watteau there again, any time; just as, when a child,
having found one day a tiny box in the shape of a silver coin, for
long afterwards I used to try every piece of money that came into my
hands, expecting it to open.

[26]

September 1714.

We were sitting in the Watteau chamber for the coolness, this sultry
evening. A sudden gust of wind ruffed the lights in the sconces on
the walls: the distant rumblings, which had continued all the
afternoon, broke out at last; and through the driving rain, a coach,
rattling across the Place, stops at our door: in a moment Jean-
Baptiste is with us once again; but with bitter tears in his eyes;--
dismissed!

October 1714.

Jean-Baptiste! he too, rejected by Antony! It makes our friendship
and fraternal sympathy closer. And still as he labours, not less
sedulously than of old, and still so full of loyalty to his old
master, in that Watteau chamber, I seem to see Antony himself, of
whom Jean-Baptiste dares not yet speak,--to come very near his work,
and understand his great parts. So Jean-Baptiste's work, in its
nearness to his, may stand, for the future, as the central interest