I hope I am the _last_ person to practise insincerity, my dear,--it's a thing I have the greatest _horror_ of. Only one doesn't like to hurt people's _feelings_, don't you see? One can only just _hint_ that a picture isn't quite--especially when one doesn't pretend to know much about it. Not that I am incapable of speaking out when I feel it my duty. If one sees where a little improvement would make all the difference, one _ought_ to mention it. And Artists are so grateful for suggestions of that kind--they like to know how it strikes a perfectly fresh eye. I remember telling the President last year that one of his figures was just a _leetle_ bit out of drawing, and that the folds of his drapery didn't hang right, and he bowed most beautifully and thanked me--but when I came to see the picture exhibited, I found he hadn't altered it a bit! So it really is hardly worth while speaking plainly--painters are so very opinionated. What a long way it is to Mr. FITZJOHN'S to be sure, and the afternoon turning quite chilly--don't take _all_ the rug, my dear, _please_! Oh, don't apologise, Mr. FITZJOHN--quite light enough for _me_, I assure you. Thank you, I will sit down, we've been seeing pictures--good, bad, _and_ indifferent--all the afternoon, so _fatiguing_, you know, so many ideas to grasp. I don't mean that that's the case with _your_ pictures ... Yes, very nice, charming. Let me see, didn't you exhibit the large one _last_ year? No? Ah! then it's my mistake, I seem to have seen it so often before--a favourite subject with Artists, I suppose. So difficult to hit on anything really original nowadays. But I daresay you despise all that sort of thing. Well, good-bye, I mustn't keep my coachman waiting any longer. Perhaps, I _was_ a little annoyed, my dear, never offering us a cup of tea or anything, after coming all that way, but I don't think I showed it, _did_ I? Yes, I _am_ rather tired, and I really think that if it wasn't that I can't bear disappointing people, I should turn back now. But we must just drop in on that poor little Mr. HAVERSTOCK, now we _are_ so near. The poor man was so anxious that I should see his pictures--we needn't stay long.