nd Amelia. The Doctor talked most of the time to Lady Vandrift: his
discourse was of picture-galleries, which Amelia detests, but in
which she thinks it incumbent upon her, as Sir Charles's wife, to
affect now and then a cultivated interest. Noblesse oblige; and the
walls of Castle Seldon, our place in Ross-shire, are almost covered
now with Leaders and with Orchardsons. This result was first arrived
at by a singular accident. Sir Charles wanted a leader--for his
coach, you understand--and told an artistic friend so. The artistic
friend brought him a Leader next week with a capital L; and Sir
Charles was so taken aback that he felt ashamed to confess the
error. So he was turned unawares into a patron of painting.

Dr. Polperro, in spite of his too pronouncedly artistic talk, proved
on closer view a most agreeable companion. He diversified his art
cleverly with anecdotes and scandals; he told us exactly which
famous painters had married their cooks, and which had only married
their models; and otherwise showed himself a most diverting talker.
Among other things, however, he happened to mention once that he
had recently discovered a genuine Rembrandt--a quite undoubted
Rembrandt, which had remained for years in the keeping of a
certain obscure Dutch family. It had always been allowed to be a
masterpiece of the painter, but it had seldom been seen for the
last half-century save by a few intimate acquaintances. It was a
portrait of one Maria Vanrenen of Haarlem, and he had bought it
of her descendants at Gouda, in Holland.

I saw Charles prick up his ears, though he took no open notice.
This Maria Vanrenen, as it happened, was a remote collateral
ancestress of the Vandrifts, before they emigrated to the Cape in
1780; and the existence of the portrait, though not its whereabouts,
was well known in the family. Isabel had often mentioned it. If it
was to be had at anything like a reasonable price, it would be a
splendid thing for the boys (Sir Charles, I ought to say, has two
sons at Eton) to possess an undoubted portrait of an ancestress
by Rembrandt.

Dr. Polperro talked a good deal after that about this valuable find.
He had tried to sell it at first to the National Gallery; but
though the Directors admired the work immensely, and admitted its
genuineness, they regretted that the funds at their disposal this
year did not permit them to acquire so important a canvas at a
proper figure. South Kensington again was too poor