"Those pictures are so painful to look at! don't you think so, Del? And
the better they are, the worse they are! Don't you remember that day we
passed with Sarah, how we wondered she could have her walls covered with
such pictures?"

"Merrill brought them home from Italy, or she wouldn't, perhaps. But I
do remember,--they ware very disagreeable. That flaying of Marsyas! and
Christ crowned with thorns! and that sad Ecce Homo!"

"Yes,--and the Laocoön on that centre bracket! enough to make you scream
to look at it! I desire never to have such bloody reminders about me;
and for a parlor or sitting-room I would infinitely prefer a dead wall
to such a picture, if it were by the oldest of the old masters. Who
wants Ugolino in the house, if it is ever so well painted? Supping on
horrors indeed!"

We rocked again,--and Laura talked about plants and shirts and such
healthy subjects. But, of course, my mind was in such a condition,
nothing but fifty-dollar subjects would stay in it; and, most of all, I
must not let Laura guess what I was thinking of.

"Do you like enamelled watches, Laura,--those pretty little ones made in
Geneva, I mean, worth from forty to sixty dollars?"

"How do you mean? Do I like the small timepieces? or is it the picture
on the back?" said Laura.

"Oh, either. I was thinking of a beauty I saw at Crosby's yesterday,
with the Madonna della Seggiola on the back. Now it is a good thing to