But to return to family portraits. That, in spite of the influx of fresh blood from all quarters, a certain family type remains, one can hardly doubt in looking through a genuine series of family pictures. I knew a case of an artist who had been employed in a certain house, where he had become familiar with the family portraits, which he had cleaned, relined and restored. Some of the early pictures of the family had been lost, in fact sold, by a spendthrift--another Charles Surface--who did not shrink from disposing of his mother's picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds. The head of the family knew where some two or three of these pictures had gone; they had been bought by a family akin to his, and the representative of that family very kindly acceded to his request that he might have them copied. The artist was sent to that gentleman's house to do what was desired. He was introduced into the dining-room, where hung over a score of portraits, but he went directly to the two which belonged to the family whose paintings he had cleaned, singled them out from the rest, and said, "These I am sure belong to the X--s. I know the type of face." He was right; he had spotted the only two which were not pictures of the A family, but were of the family X. The delight of watching the re-emergence of a disappeared family likeness, as generations pass, is, no doubt, the chief delight of having a good series of family pictures. But there is an advantage in such a series which is not perhaps much considered, and that is the linking of the present generation in thought with the past. Since, with the Reformation, prayer for the dead ceased, our association with the world of the departed has fallen into total disregard, and we neither think of holding any communion of thought and good-will with our forebears, nor suppose that they can entertain any kindly thought of and wishes for us and our welfare. And yet, how much we owe them! Our beautiful estates, our dear old houses, the laying out of the parks and grounds, the cutting of the terraces, the digging of the ponds, the planting of the stately trees, the gathering together of our plate, our books, our pictures, our old furniture. Nay, more, if we have not inherited these, we have from them some twists in our mind, some terms in our speech, some physical or psychical characteristics, some virtues and some faults. We owe to those old people more than we suppose. To their self-restraint, their guileless walk, their frugal ways, we owe our own hale bodies and strict consciences. Consider what misery a strain of tainted blood brings into a family--a strain of blood that carries vicious propensities with it. Well, if we have good in us, if we are scrupulous, honest, truthful, self-controlled, it comes to us in a large measure along with our pure blood from honest ancestry.