duty,--to encourage our own painters. A picture once bought, I am not
sure that he ever looks at it again."

"What does he then--" I stopped short, for I felt my meditated question
was ill-bred.

"What does he like then? you were about to say. Why, I have known him,
of course, since I could know anything; but I have never yet discovered
what my father does like. No,--not even politics; though he lives for
politics alone. You look puzzled; you will know him better some day, I
hope; but you will never solve the mystery--what Mr. Trevanion likes."

"You are wrong," said Lady Ellinor, who had followed us into the room,
unheard by us. "I can tell you what your father does more than like,--
what he loves and serves every hour of his noble life,--justice,
beneficence, honor, and his country. A man who loves these may be
excused for indifference to the last geranium or the newest plough, or
even (though that offends you more, Fanny) the freshest masterpiece by
Lanseer, or the latest fashion honored by Miss Trevanion."

"Mamma!" said Fanny, and the tears sprang to her eyes. But Lady Ellinor
looked to me sublime as she spoke, her eyes kindled, her breast heaved.
The wife taking the husband's part against the child, and comprehending
so well what the child felt not, despite its experience of every day,
and what the world would never know, despite all the vigilance of its
praise and its blame, was a picture, to my taste, finer than any in the
collection.

Her face softened as she saw the tears in Fanny's bright hazel eyes; she
held out her hand, which her child kissed tenderly; and whispering, "'T