r it pops, he says.
What is that picture over there, Uncle Winthrop? It is very ugly."

Laine glanced at the picture to which Dorothea pointed. "That is a
Jan Steen--'The Village Fair.' Sorry you don't like it. You think
that Botticelli is ugly also. A little later in life it may meet
with your approval. The original is priceless."

"A lot of priceless things aren't pretty. I don't ever expect to be
a culturated person. Mother makes me go to all those old galleries
and museums, when we're in Europe, and look at a lot of cracked
pictures and broken statues and carved things, and wants me to think
they're beautiful, but I don't. Some of them are hideous, and I get
so tired of being told I must admire them that I make a face inside
at most of them as I walk along, though, of course, outside, for
mother's sake, I don't make any signs. I'm a great disappointment to
mother. We had a lady artist guide the last time we were in Italy.
She used to get so mad with me that once she shook me. Father would
have killed her if she hadn't been a lady, and after that he and I
used to go out by ourselves and have the grandest times. He'd show
me just a few pictures at the time, and tell me all about them, and
some of them I just loved. Mother says you have so many beautiful
things, Uncle Winthrop, and that it's a shame for a man to have them
all by himself." She looked around the large room, and again took
her seat in her uncle's lap. "Some things I like in here, and some I
don't. You've got an awful lot of books, haven't you?"

"Too many, I'm afraid. Would you mind if I smoked?" Laine reached
for a cigar from the box on the table and held it between his fingers.

"May I?"

"Of course. I hope I won't forget, though, and kiss you. I'm so apt
to when I'm talking, if I like a person. Tobacco is so bitter. I'll
tell you what I think is the matter with this room. It's--it's--"
She looked around carefully. "It's something that isn't in it. I
don't know what it is. Why don't you get married, Uncle Winthrop?
Maybe your wife would know."

Laine put the unlighted cigar back on the table, and Dorothea's
hands, which were stroking one of his, were gripped by it and held
tightly.

"I do not doubt it. The trouble is in getting the wife."

Dorothea sat upright. "The idea! I heard Miss Robin French say the
other day the way unmarried men were run after was outrageous, and
all they had to do was to stand still and c