Momma addressed the Senator. I mentioned to her once that her way of
doing it was almost English in its demonstrativeness, and my other
parent told me privately he wished I hadn't--it aggravated it so.

"Augusta," said poppa, firmly, "I understand your feeling. I take a
human interest in those stores myself, which I do not expect this
picture gallery, etc., to inspire in me. But there the Louvre _is_, you
see, and it's got to be done. If we spent our whole time in this city in
mere pleasure and amusement, you would be the first to reproach
yourself, Augusta."

A few minutes later, when we had crossed the stone quadrangle and
mounted the stairs, and stood with our catalogue in the Salle Lacaze,
momma said that she wouldn't have missed it for anything. She sank
ecstatic upon a bench, and gave to every individual picture upon the
opposite wall the tribute of her intensest admiration. It was a pleasure
to see her enjoying herself so much; and poppa and I vainly tried to
keep up to her with the catalogue.

"Oh, why haven't we such things in Chicago!" she exclaimed, at which the
Senator checked her mildly.

"It's a mere question of time," said he. "It isn't reasonable to expect
Pre-Raphaelites in a new country. But give us three or four hundred
years, and we'll produce old masters which, if you ladies will excuse
the expression, will knock the spots out of the Middle Ages." Poppa is
such an optimist about Chicago.

The Senator went on in a strain of criticism of the pictures perfectly
moderate and kindly--nothing he wouldn't have said to the artists