_Chapter II_


Punctually the next day at three o'clock, Esther Dudley appeared in her
aunt's drawing-room where she found half a dozen ladies chatting, or
looking at Mr. Murray's pictures in the front parlor. The lady of the
house sat in an arm-chair before the fire in an inner room, talking with
two other ladies of the board, one of whom, with an aggressive and
superior manner, seemed finding fault with every thing except the Middle
Ages and Pericles.

"A tailor who builds a palace to live in," said she, "is a vulgar
tailor, and an artist who paints the tailor and his palace as though he
were painting a doge of Venice, is a vulgar artist."

"But, Mrs. Dyer," replied her hostess coldly, "I don't believe there was
any real difference between a doge of Venice and a doge of New York.
They all made fortunes more or less by cheating their neighbors, and
when they were rich they wanted portraits. Some one told them to send
for Mr. Tizian or Mr. Wharton, and he made of them all the gentlemen
there ever were."

Mrs. Dyer frowned a protest against this heresy. "Tizian would have
respected his art," said she; "these New York men are making money."

"For my part," said Mrs. Murray as gently as she could, "I am grateful