acherib and his doings, which resemble these; this verse, for
instance, I remember: "Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah did
Sennacherib, King of Assyria, come up against all the fenced cities of
Judah and took them. And Hezekiah, King of Judah, sent to the King of
Assyria to Lachish," and so on. Well, there it actually is, you see.
There's Sennacherib, and there's Lachish. Is it not glorious to think
that this is a picture done at the time of those very events?'

'Yes. We did not quarrel this time, Ethelberta and I. If I may so put
it, it is worse than quarrelling. We felt it was no use going on any
longer, and so--Come, Faith, hear what I say, or else tell me that you
won't hear, and that I may as well save my breath!'

'Yes, I will really listen,' she said, fluttering her eyelids in her
concern at having been so abstracted, and excluding Sennacherib there and
then from Christopher's affairs by the first settlement of her features
to a present-day aspect, and her eyes upon his face. 'You said you had
seen Ethelberta. Yes, and what did she say?'

'Was there ever anybody so provoking! Why, I have just told you!'

'Yes, yes; I remember now. You have parted. The subject is too large
for me to know all at once what I think of it, and you must give me time,
Kit. Speaking of Ethelberta reminds me of what I have done. I just
looked into the Academy this morning--I thought I would surprise you by
telling you about it. And what do you think I saw? Ethelberta--in the
picture painted by Mr. Ladywell.'

'It is never hung?' said he, feeling that they were at one as to a topic
at last.

'Yes. And the subject is an Elizabethan knight parting from a lady of
the same period--the words explaining the picture being--

"Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know'st thy estimate."

The lady is Ethelberta, to the shade of a hair--her living face; and the
knight is--'

'Not Ladywell?'

'I think so; I am not sure.'

'No wonder I am dismissed! And yet she hates him. Well, come along,
Faith. Women allow strange liberties in these days.'

25. THE ROYAL ACADEMY--THE FARNFIELD ESTATE

Ethelberta was a firm believer in the kindly effects of artistic
education upon the masses. She held that defilement of mind often arose
from ignorance of eye; and her philanthropy being, by the simple force of
her situation, of that sort which lingers in the neighbourhood of home,