Marillier admired this picture, which he described as “a scene of three figures
sitting on a turf-lined couch in a pavilion or arbour. In the centre is a man, cross-legged,
his chin on his hand, gazing with rapt admiration at the blonde-haired damsel on his left who
is singing to a lute. A vapid, reckless-looking maid she is, not to be compared to the dark
beauty on his right, who with gloomy frown is trying to will back her lover. On the ground
beside them her glass only stands untasted; she alone is sad. There is the little
tragedy—barring one only the oldest I suppose in the world—set in a
field of the brightest, sunniest green, all nature rejoicing round it. Much as I admire almost
all Rossetti's water-colours, I know not one that clings in the mind like this, or that
produces without effort, from a purely imaginary scene, so profound an impression of
actuality” (