pictures, songs, books or plays were written by anyone who did
not belong to "The Circle," these were considered "pretty, but
not Tart!" Anything successful was pronounced "Vulgar!" To be
artistic in Mrs. Octagon's sense, a work had to possess
obscurity, it had to be printed on the finest paper with
selected type, and it had to be sold at a prohibitive price.
In this way "Rowena" had produced her works, and her name was
not known beyond her small coterie. All the same, she
intimated that her renown was world-wide and that her fame
would be commensurate with the existence of the Anglo-Saxon
race. Mrs. Lee Hunter in the Pickwick Papers, also labored
under the same delusion.

With Peter lived Mrs. Saxon's children by the eminent Q.C.
Basil, who was twenty-five, and Juliet age twenty-two. They
were both handsome and clever, but Juliet was the more
sensible of the two. She detested the sham enthusiasm of The
Circle, and appreciated Peter more than her mother did. Basil
had been spoilt by his mother, who considered him a genius,
and had produced a book of weak verse. Juliet was fond of her
brother, but she saw his faults and tried to correct them.
She wished to make him more of a man and less of an artistic
fraud, for the young man really did possess talents. But the
hothouse atmosphere of "The Shrine of the Muses!" would have
ruined anyone possessed of genius, unless he had a strong
enough nature to withstand the sickly adulation and false
judgments of those who came there. Basil was not strong. He
was pleasant, idle, rather vain, and a little inclined to be
dissipated. Mrs. Octagon did not know that Basil was fond of
dissipation. She thought him a model young Oxford man, and