"Well, ma'am, from London we went across by Ostend to Bruges, where I studied the Memlings, and made a few little copies from them," Melissa answered, with her sunny smile. "It's such a quaint old place--Bruges; life seems to flow as stagnant as its own canals. Have you ever been there?" "Oh, charming!" Lucy answered; "most delightful and quiet. But--er--who are the Memlings? I don't quite recollect them." Melissa gazed at her open-eyed. "The Memlings?" she said, slowly; "why, you've just missed the best thing at Bruges if you haven't seen them. They've such a naive charm of their own, so innocent and sympathetic. They're in the Hopital de St. Jean, you know, where Memling put them. And it's so delightful to see great pictures like those (though they're tiny little things to look at) in their native surroundings, exactly as they were first painted--the 'Chasse de Ste. Ursule,' and all those other lovely things, so infantile in their simplicity, and yet so exquisitely graceful and pure and beautiful. I don't know as I saw anything in Europe to equal them for pathos in their own way--except, of course, the Fra Angelicos at San Marco in Florence." "I don't think I've seen them," Lucy murmured, with an uncomfortable air. I could see it was just dawning upon her, in spite of her patronising, that this Yankee girl, with her imperfect command of the English tongue, knew a vast deal more about some things worth notice than she herself did. "And where did you go then, dear?" "Oh, from Bruges we went on to Ghent," Melissa answered, leaning back, and looking as pretty as a picture herself in her sweet little travelling dress, "to see the great Van Eyck, the 'Adoration of the Lamb,' you know--that magnificent panel picture. And then we went to Brussels, where we had Dierick Bouts and all the later Flemings; and to Antwerp for Rubens and Vandyck and Quentin Matsys; and the Hague, after that, for Rembrandt and Paul Potter; and Amsterdam, in the end, for Van der Heist and Gerard Dow and the late Dutch painters. So, you see, we had quite an artistic tour; we followed up the development of Netherlandish art from beginning to end in historical order. It was just delightful." "I went to Antwerp once," Bernard put in, somewhat sheepishly, still twirling his moustache; "but it was on my way to Switzerland, and I didn't see much, as far as I can recollect, except the cathedral and the quay and the hotel I was stopping at." "Ah, that's all very well for YOU," Melissa answered, with a rather envious air. "You can see these things any day. But for us the chance comes only once in a lifetime, and we must make the most of it."