"You're quite right, my dear, and it's matter of surprise to me how you should pick up so many useful idees, in an out-of-the-way place, like Willow Cove." "It was not out of _your_ way, uncle," said Kitty, a little reproachfully, "or you never would have found us." "In that partic'lar it was well enough, my dear. Yes, a nun is a sort of she-hermit, a breed that I detest altogether." "I suppose, Kitty," I inquired, "you think it wicked in man or woman to take a vow never to get married." The poor girl blushed, and she turned away from the nun without making any reply. No one can say what turn the conversation might have taken, had not the grandmother's eye fell on an indifferent copy of Leonardo's celebrated picture of the Last Supper, receiving at the same time a printed explanation, one got up by some local antiquary, who had ventured to affix names to the different personages of the group, at his own suggestion. I pointed out the principal figure of the painting, which is sufficiently conspicuous by the way, and then referred the good woman to the catalogue for the rest of the names. "Bless me, bless me!" exclaimed the worthy mother, "that I should live ever to see paintings of such people! Kitty, my dear, this bald-headed old man is St. Peter. Did you ever think that St. Peter was bald! And there is St. John, with black eyes.--Wonderful, wonderful, that I should ever live to see likenesses of such blessed men!" Kitty was as much astonished as her grandmother, and even the son was a little mystified. The latter remarked that "the world was making great head-way in all such things, and, for his part, he did not see how the painters and authors found out all they drew and recorded." The reader may easily imagine that half a day spent in such company was not entirely thrown away. Still, half a day sufficed; and I went to the Old Coffee-house at one, to eat a sandwich and drink a glass of porter; that being the inn then most frequented for such purposes, especially by the merchants. I was in my box, with the curtain drawn, when a party of three entered that which adjoined it, ordering as many glasses of punch; which in that day was a beverage much in request of a morning, and which it was permitted even to a gentleman to drink before dining. It was the sherry-cobbler of the age; although I believe every thing is now pronounced to be out of fashion before dinner. As the boxes were separated merely by curtains, it was impossible to avoid hearing any conversation that passed in the one adjoining my own, especially when the parties took no pains to speak low, as happened to be the case with my three neighbours. Consequently, I recognised the voices of Andrew Drewett and Rupert Hardinge in an instant;--that of the third person being unknown to me.