"No. It's a great place full of pictures, many of them hundreds of years old. They're taken care of by the Government, just for people to go and look at. Wouldn't you like to go and see them some day?" "Donno as I should much." "If I were to go with you, now, and explain some of them to you? I want you to take your wife and me out for a holiday. You can't think, you who go out to your work every day, how tiresome it is to be in the house from morning to night, especially at this time of the year, when the sun's shining, and the very sparrows trying to sing!" "She may go out when she please, grannie. I ain't no tyrant." "But she doesn't care to go without you. You wouldn't have her like one of those slatternly women you see standing at the corners, with their fists in their sides and their elbows sticking out, ready to talk to anybody that comes in the way." "_My_ wife was never none o' sich, grannie. I knows her as well's e'er a one, though she do 'ave a temper of her own." At this moment Eliza appeared in the door-way, saying,-- "Will ye come to yer supper, Dick? I ha' got a slice o' ham an' a hot tater for ye. Come along." "Well, I don't know as I mind--jest to please _you_, Liza. I believe I ha' been asleep in grannie's cheer there, her a playin' an' a singin', I make no doubt, like a werry nightingerl, bless her, an' me a snorin' all to myself, like a runaway locomotive! Won't _you_ come and have a slice o' the 'am, an' a tater, grannie? The more you ate, the less we'd grudge it." "I'm sure o' that," chimed in Eliza. "Do now, grannie; please do." "I will, with pleasure," said Marion; and they went down together. Eliza had got the table set out nicely, with a foaming jug of porter beside the ham and potatoes. Before they had finished, Marion had persuaded Richard to take his wife and her to the National Gallery, the next day but one, which, fortunately for her purpose, was Whit Monday, a day whereon Richard, who was from the north always took a holiday. At the National Gallery, the house-painter, in virtue of his craft, claimed the exercise of criticism; and his remarks were amusing enough. He had more than once painted a sign-board for a country inn, which fact formed a bridge between the covering of square yards with color and the painting of pictures; and he naturally used the vantage-ground thus gained to enhance his importance with his wife and Miss Clare. He was rather a clever fellow too, though as little educated in any other direction than that of his calling as might well be. All the woman seemed to care about in the pictures was this or that something which reminded her, often remotely enough I dare say, of her former life in the country. Towards the close of their visit, they approached a picture--one of Hobbima's, I think--which at once riveted her attention.