e served
in the large saloon at the back, built over what was once the courtyard;
and while his servants were laying the tables with the cold viands which
they had brought with them, Alan took his guests through the state-rooms
to see the pictures, and endeavoured to carry out his plan of educating
them by pointing out to them some of the finer works of art.

"This," he said, stopping in front of a portrait, "is a picture of Lady
Mary Wortley-Montagu, who was born here, painted by one of the first
portrait-painters of her day. I want you to look at her hands, and to
notice how exquisitely they are painted. Also I wish to call your
attention to the expression of her face. You know that it is the duty of
art to interpret nature--that is to say, to show to ordinary people
those hidden beauties and underlying meanings of common things which
they would never be able to find out for themselves; and I think that in
the expression on this woman's face the artist has shown forth, in a
most wonderful way, the dissatisfaction and bitterness of her heart. As
you look at her face you seem to see right into her soul, and to
understand how she was foredoomed by nature and temperament to ask too
much of life and to receive too little."

"Well, to be sure!" remarked Mrs. Bateson, in an undertone, to her lord
and master; "she is a bit like our superintendent's wife, only not so
stout. And what a gown she has got on! I should say that satin is worth
five-and-six a yard if it is worth a penny. And I call it a sin and a
shame to have a dirty green parrot sitting on your shoulder when you're
wearing satin like that. If she'd had any sense she'd have fed the
animals before she put her best gown on."

"I never could abide parrots," joined in Mrs. Hankey; "they smell so."

"And as for her looking dissatisfied and all that," continued Mrs.
Bateson, "I for one can't see it. But if she did, it was all a pack of
rubbish. What had she to grumble at, I should like to know, with a satin
gown on at five-and-six a yard?"

By this time Alan had moved on to another picture. "This represents an
unhappy marriage," he explained. "At first sight you see nothing but two
well-dressed people sitting at table; but as you look into the picture
you perceive the misery in the woman's face and the cruelty in the
man's, and you realize all that they mean."

"Well, I see nothing more at second sight," whispered Mrs. Hankey;
"except that the tablecloth might have