My cousin gave me the tidings that it was to open in two days. He hoped I would accompany Mrs. Brand. He knew my judgment was excellent, and felt anxious to have my opinion of several pictures he had already secured, and of others he intended purchasing. "Oh, I shall be so glad!" I exclaimed, with an eagerness that made him smile. I reddened at the thought that my motive had been detected, and tried to repair my blunder; but do what I would, I could not help betraying my pleasure. I laughed, I talked, I was not the same. "Have I really succeeded so well?" whispered my cousin. The spirit of mischief is not easily repressed at seventeen. I looked up at him, and answered saucily-- "Better than you think." Mr. Thornton laughed, and declared I was the most delightfully original and _naive_ girl he had ever met with. It rained the whole of the following day, which we spent at Poplar Lodge, to the great disgust of the slave of the world. But the next morning rose lovely and serene. At an early hour we were at the doors of the Royal Academy. I knew that the pictures of Cornelius were accepted; on that head I therefore felt no uneasiness, yet my heart beat as we ascended the steps of the National Gallery. A glance at the catalogue dispelled all lingering fear. As my cousin placed it in my hands, he accompanied it with a pencil case, and a whispered entreaty to mark the pictures I approved. I looked up at him, smiling to think he had chosen a judge so partial. We had no sooner entered the first room than Mrs. Brand was overpowered with the heat. When she recovered, she thought she should go and look at the miniatures with her dear Edith. She knew we did not like the miniatures, and requested that we should go our own way. She and her dear Edith would go their own way. We resisted this a little, but Mrs. Brand was peremptory, and at length we yielded and parted from them. Absorbed in the engrossing thought "Are they well hung?" I performed my critical office very inaccurately; but having been so fortunate as to single out two of the pictures Mr. Thornton had purchased, I escaped detection, and received several warm compliments on my good taste. He was informing me how much he relied upon it, when we suddenly came to the two Italian pieces of Cornelius. "What do you think of these?" I said carelessly. "Poor, very poor," he replied, and passed on. I heard him mortified and mute; all my hopes dispelled at once by all this sweeping censure. The pictures of Cornelius poor! Those two beautiful Italian things, which would have filled so well the blank spaces in the gallery! I was astonished and indignant at Mr. Thornton's bad taste. He might mark his own pictures now, I would have nothing more to do with him; he was evidently conceited, impertinent, insolent, and he had neither heart nor soul, for he could not appreciate the beautiful. Unconscious of my feelings, my cousin went on criticising.