"'But do look,' she said, in a tolerably calm voice, in which, however, I could detect a satirical tone; 'here is a picture by your Dutch painter of holy subjects, and on a larger scale than any we have seen before. I must say, if the subject were not so objectionable, it would go far to reconcile me to him. It seems to me that he has made great progress: one might almost call this picture beautiful; not only the colouring, but the whole composition has something grandiose, historical as you call it, a style--' (You may see that the little woman had not consorted with artists for the last six years for nothing, and could deliver her art-criticisms as confidently as any newspaper writer, only rather more intelligently.) 'But I believe,' she continued, 'that the Bathsheba who is there undressing to take a bath in a very shallow reservoir, is your marvellous creature from the Rhine. At all events, she does not look like any of the other studies in the room, and the little King David who peeps from an upper window, and naturally shows us the beautiful cheese-coloured face of the painter, looks at the lady with a genuine artist's eye, such as I have seen in other people's heads when staring under the bonnets of pretty girls,' (with that, a side glance at her faithful husband.) 'Well! I must say she is not bad-looking, if he has not idealised his model too much; but was I not right to refuse to take that persecuted innocence into our house? A pretty snake, indeed, I should have warmed in my breast! _She_ helpless! I think one who lets herself be painted thus, knows very well how to help herself. And really I do not know which I ought to wonder at most, at my good unsuspicious husband, who was so easily taken in by an experienced adventuress, or, if indeed he were not so entirely harmless in the matter, at his sanguine hope of humbugging me. At all events I am very glad that things have taken this turn.'