frames, apparently held in place by heavy cord and tassels; one was of George Washington, the other the past owner of all these glories. It was curious to see the marked and comic likeness a fair young daughter of the house, the village school-mistress, bore to the hard-faced, non-perspectived old daub of a grandfather on the wall; had you dressed her in a brass-buttoned blue coat and a high stock, she would have been far more like the portrait than most portraits are like their originals. One large space was decorated with a full-passengered coach with four prancing horses; the other bore a marine view—fierce waves, and a strangely rigged brig, with gilded cannon, and fine flags and pennants all blowing stiffly against the wind that filled the sails. A steamboat, too, sailed these waters blue—the greatest triumph of the painter’s art. Robert Fulton’s invention was in its infancy when this steamboat was evolved, and it was plainly constructed from the artist’s imagination. The cranky hull bore two brick chimneys; it rested on crossbars like a wagon, and had four great wheels that sat well up out of the water. The floor of this room was painted a dull drab color, and in brilliant yellow was displayed a diagram of the solar system, planets, moons, and orbits, sadly worn and defaced, however, by the footsteps of three generations of New Englanders. Do you wonder that the china posy-holders were overlooked in all this blaze of glory? I recount the gaudy decorations with grateful praise. Through them my treasures stood, ever “eye-sweet and fair,” but unnoticed, for years, humbly awaiting my china-loving and china-spying vision.