urn sharply.

Here the footman brought in the tea. Miss Westbury frowned, and
ostentatiously changed the subject.

"Have you been to the Grafton? I was persuaded to go. I think, myself,
there's a great deal too much fuss made about pictures nowadays. When
one thinks of the money that's wasted on them, when it might be sent to
a hospital, it makes one's blood boil! And some of those that are made
the most fuss about--both the Old Masters and the very new ones--these
post-men, or whatever they're called--seem to me perfect nonsense. A
daub and a splash--no real trouble taken--and then you're expected to
rave about it. There's one man--some one wants me to buy a picture of
his--he paints all his pictures in tiny squares of different colours;
when you're close you can't see anything, but it seems that if you walk
five feet away it forms into a kind of pattern. It seems it's the
tessellated school, and they tell me that in a few years nothing else
will count. And what I thought was a mountain in a mist turns out to be
'A Nun with cows grazing.' Silly nonsense I call it!"

"Was the nun grazing, or the cows?" asked Mrs. Wyburn.

"Goodness knows, dear. Then there was that other one called Waning Day,
or something. Two people in a boat sailing on dry land! Then that
picture of a purple man with a green beard! Oh, my dear! The people who
took me there told me it was full of--something French--_essayage_, or
_mouvement_, I think. The man who tried to make me buy it said it was
symbolical. But of course I refused. You know I never have anything to
do with nonsense. Well now, my dear----" Taking pity on Mrs. Wyburn's
extreme impatience, Miss Westbury came a little nearer. "What I heard
was simply this. My cousin, Jane Totness, took her little boy, who is in
London for the holidays, to the British Museum. She always likes to
improve his mind as much as possible; besides, he had been promised a
treat after having a tooth out; the first week of the holidays he always
has a tooth out and a treat after. Jane is like that; she's a sensible
woman, and I must say I think she brings her boys up very well. I myself
might have been more inclined to take him to Madame Tussaud's, or even
to a matinee, or to have an ice at Buzzard's; but I dare say I'm
old-fashioned enough in some ways, and Jane knows her own business
best."

"No doubt she does," said Mrs. Wyburn, quivering with impatience,
tapping her foot on the floor, and trying to restra