“It is she who has made a home for the great Doctor at that pattern of country houses, Streatham,” continued Sir Joshua. “She has preserved an invaluable life, madam, years longer to the country, by taking Dr. Johnson’s health under her care, as she has often told us, and by nursing him out of some of his worst attacks and most injurious habits. Would to God her efforts could continue successful, both with him and Mr. Thrale, who is, I fear, in a bad way, and on the brink of an apoplexy.” “She deserves all honour,” said Lady Bell warmly. “The more so that her cares seem to sit lightly on her.” Captain Fane could not resist the sly hit. Lady Bell flashed a little reproach upon him from her eyes, which looked as if she were condescending to take his manners, as Mrs. Thrale had taken Dr. Johnson’s health, under her special superintendence. “A matter of temperament,” pronounced the genially philosophic painter. Sir Joshua, who enjoyed his own reputation as an urbane and accomplished man of the world, as he enjoyed most things in the pleasantly prosperous places in which his lines were cast, began to talk to Captain Fane of Captain Cook, with whom the painter’s friend, Dr. Burney’s son, had made a voyage round the world; and of Sir Joseph Banks’s collection of objects of natural history, which Captain Fane had seen under the care of young Mr. Jenner, the favourite pupil of Dr. Hunter. Sir Joshua had made a happy choice of subjects to which Captain Fane was alive, and in which he was well informed. The gentlemen talked like kindred spirits, while Lady Bell, to her credit, was content to remain in the background, and listen with deference and delight. She was innocently proud of her companion. How very different was the figure which Captain Fane cut to-day, in company with a genius who was at the same time a finished gentleman of any school, from the figure which Captain Fane had presented at the sailing-party! What other male friend of Lady Bell’s could have stood so severe a test, and come out of it so splendidly? Not Sir George Waring, in spite of his elegance and his musical talents, any more than Master Charles. Lady Bell was deeply impressed by Captain Fane’s gifts, which he was really in the habit of hiding under a bushel. She was almost provoked when Sir Joshua remembered his duty to her, not guessing how well pleased she was that he should forget it, and began to tell her of the one lady who belonged to the Royal Society of Artists, Mrs. Angelica Kauffman. It was not a difficult process to make a digression to those ladies who were amateur artists, and to render Lady Bell, in spite of her _savoir faire_, bashfully grateful, by deigning to drop a hint for her benefit on the mixing and laying-on of colours, and on the drawing of such slight designs as Sir Joshua had himself afforded to Poggi for his fans.