gallop, touches here a flank, there a wing feather on one of the
hours, and warms to rosy glow the tip of a cloud. It appears in
unexpected places, grows where only shadow seemed to be, and
surprises you anew each time you look up. Painted in the
flat--that is, with no part of the picture telling as farther
from the eye than another, to distort the proportions of the
room--the ceiling yet has great depth, distance, airy lightness.
It is a true decorative painting.

While at work upon it, Mr. Elliott painted many portraits,
including the well-known red chalk heads of the "Soldiers Three,"
Lord Ava, the Marquis of Winchester, and General Wauchope; the
portrait of His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge; and that of
Lady Katherine Thynne, now Lady Cromer, a celebrated English
beauty. Indeed, he made her the model for the second hour in the
Boston ceiling, the figure next to the leader in the procession.
Three studies of her head for this figure, well known from
reproduction, are now in the possession of Thomas W. Lawson.

In Rome the Elliotts occupied for some time the apartments of
Mrs. Elliott's cousin, the late F. Marion Crawford, in the
Palazzo Santa Croce. In writing "With the Immortals," Mr.
Crawford had collected many death masks, including one of Dante,
which fascinated Mr. Elliott. Two pictures of "Dante in Exile"
were the result. One of them now hangs in the living room of
Queen Margherita of Italy, the other in the house of Mrs. J.
Montgomery Sears of Boston. A third pastel study was made, an
unfinished head of the poet, and thrown into a wastebasket. By a
curious fatality, it is now better known than either of the
paintings. Mrs. Elliott rescued the drawing, smoothed it out,