?"

"Why, ma'am--I think--at least, so I understood him. Didn't Sir Thomas
Lawrence praise some of my pictures, aunt?"

"I really don't remember," said Miss Susannah, looking more at Mr Roe
than at her nephew.

"Oh, I thought you told us last time we dined here, that Sir Thomas
stayed with you weeks at a time, and copied five or six of them
himself."

"P'r'aps I knows more of them family portraits," said Mr Roe with a
wilful exaggeration of accent and magnanimous contempt of
grammar--"than e'er a one on ye."

All eyes were immediately directed to the old man. Mrs Rayleigh, who
was a fine lady, and had never seen so queer a specimen of a critic as
Mr Roe, was a little alarmed at his uncouth pronunciation. And Mr
Gillingham Howard made a feeble and unsuccessful effort to deaden the
effect of his remarks.

"My friend is a remarkably good judge of the fine arts, but quite a
character. An amazing humourist, and very much given to quizzing.
You'll hear what fun he'll make of us all."

"Who is he?" enquired Mrs Rayleigh, in the same confidential whisper.

"A person who has grown very rich in some sort of trade. He was a
protege of a relation of mine."

"And you bear with his eccentricities in hopes of his succession?"

"Exactly."

"I minds the getting of the whole lot on 'em. I can give you the
birth, parentage, and edication, of every one on 'em."

"Of the pictures, sir?" enquired Mr Tinter, taking out his note-book.
"I shall be delighted with any information."

"But where is the gallery, Mr Howard?" enquired Mrs Rayleigh.

"Why, madam, many of the pictures--in fact, all the best of them are
in London at the cleaner's; but in the passage to the Conservatory
there are some remaining, but the place is dark. I hope you'll rather
look at them some other time."

"Now's the best," said Mr Roe, starting up. "Let's see the family
picters, Gus."

Mr Howard was forced by the entreaties of all the party, and led the
way to the passage where his pictures were hung, followed by Mrs
Rayleigh and her two daughters, and Mr Tinter, Mr Roe, and Fanny, and
Aunt Susannah.

"That seems a portrait of Queen Anne's time," said Mr Tinter, pointing
to a much bewigged old gentleman in an antique frame. "Pray, what is
its history?"

"Isn't that your grandfather's uncle, the general who won the battle
of Ramillies against Marlborough's orders?" enquired Mrs Rayleigh. "Do
tell Mr Tinter all about it."

"I reminds all about it,"