overed the slightest trace of our poor wonder of the world.

"When, however, the middle of September came, and I had got a little
tired of painting studies, and perhaps, also, of the monotonous fare of
our country abode, and began to long for a return to the amenities of
town life, I became conscious of a lively desire to know what had
become of my Dutchman and his beauty. My first walk in Munich was to
his studio, where I found the nest empty indeed, but left upon his
little slate my name and a hearty greeting. After that I went with my
wife to the exhibition, for where one has been so long face to face
with nature, it is a pleasure to see how art has been getting on in the
meantime. But what was my amazement, when the first picture my eyes
fell upon, was nothing else than an unmistakable genuine Van Kuylen, in
which his unfortunate studies of Kate were turned to account in his
well-known manner, and certainly so questionably, that I at first
pretended not to notice it, in order to get my wife safely past. But
she with her lynx-eyes instantly made out the whole story.

"'But do look,' she said, in a tolerably calm voice, in which, however,
I could detect a satirical tone; 'here is a picture by your Dutch
painter of holy subjects, and on a larger scale than any we have seen
before. I must say, if the subject were not so objectionable, it would
go far to reconcile me to him. It seems to me that he has made great
progress: one might almost call this picture beautiful; not only the
colouring, but the whole composition has something grandiose,
historical as you call it, a style--' (You may see that the little
woman had not consorted with artists for the last six years for
nothing, and could deliver her art-criticisms as confidently as any
newspaper writer, only rather more intelligently.) 'But I believe,' she
continued, 'that the Bathsheba who is there undressing to take a bath
in a very shallow reservoir, is your marvellous creature from the
Rhine. At all events, she does not look like any of the other studies
in the room, and the little King David who peeps from an upper window,
and naturally shows us the beautiful cheese-coloured face of the
painter, looks at the lady with a genuine artist's eye, such as I have
seen in other people's heads when staring under the bonnets of pretty
girls,' (with that, a side glance at her faithful husband.) 'Well! I
must say she is not bad-looking, if he has not idealised his model too
mu