plained; "nice thing! I don't know much
about painting" (he called it paintin') "and art, and all that sort
of thing, but I believe it's about as good as they make them."

He had accepted all the inconsistent, murmured criticism almost as a
personal tribute; and for the greater part at least of the afternoon
his beaming face had completely belied the discomfort occasioned by
his severe frock-coat and tightly-fitting patent-leather boots; and
his yearning for a comfortable chair, with a box of cigars and a
whisky-and-seltzer at his elbow, had been suppressed, rigidly and
heroically.

"I suppose it's devilish good," he thought, as he sat waiting for
the rest of his party. "People seem to admire those splashes of
yellow and black, and all those dirty colours. Personally, I think I
prefer the girl in white next door. Hullo, there's Eve!"

"Don't get up, Colonel," said Mrs. Sylvester; "we want to sit here
for a little and hear what people say about Richard's picture. They
make such amusing remarks sometimes! Not always complimentary; but,
then, they often don't know anything about art."

"Yes," said Eve, seating herself, with a delicate consideration for
the new dress, which the occasion had demanded, between the Colonel
and her mother; "we heard someone say that the flesh in that big
Roman picture with the temple, you know--I can't pronounce the
name--was like cotton wool--pink cotton wool! Oh, and that the girl
in black, with the yellow fan, whose portrait is in the big room,
must be at least eight feet high!"

"Now, how the dickens could he tell that!" interposed the Colonel.

"Oh, he was talking very learnedly, about heads and things. How
provoking of that old gentleman in the gold spectacles! Standing
just in front of Dick's picture with his back to it. He looks just
exactly like a millionaire, and he won't look, and he's preventing
other people from looking! Do turn him round, uncle, or move him on,
or something!"

"Do you see that man there?" whispered Mrs. Sylvester presently,
"the tall man with the sandy hair and beard? I think he's a painter.
He said just now that Richard's picture was amazingly good, and that
he thought he knew where he got the idea from."

"Why, of course," said the Colonel carelessly; "Dick got the idea
from that beggar what's-his-name's dock--and a thundering good idea
too! I wonder what time they close? Perhaps----"

"Yes," said Mrs. Sylvester, buttoning her gloves, "I suppose we ha