“I am sure you are quite right,” said Anne. Money! If only she had a little money! How that would simplify things!
Mr. Sotheby had needed no encouragement, and went on speaking: “All these farmers hoard their money, and laugh at me for spending mine, but I always say that we are both in the right, for they haven’t sons like my Richard. What good is money to my wife and me?” he asked, but, without waiting for a reply, continued: “To him it means books, education, painting in the best studios, and the company of his equals, for he would not find his equals about here.”
“Yes, money means all that and more,” thought Anne, but aloud she said:
“Is Lorenzo a painter, then?”
“My son Richard? No, he is an artist. I am fond of pictures myself, so I can understand him. I have seen some by the great men: Rembrandt, Turner, and Wouverman. There is a fine gallery at Norwich.”
“I am very fond of pictures, too,” said Anne. “I have always wanted to try oils; perhaps I shall one day.”
“I thought at first of sending Richard to Cambridge,” said the grocer, for he was not interested in Anne’s chances of painting. “But he said no to it. ‘There’s only one place where I can learn to be an artist,’ he said. ‘Paris is the only place for that.’”
Mr. Sotheby shook the reins, and murmured to his pony as they crossed a little bridge, then he continued: “One hears a great deal about the wickedness of Paris; several of our ministers have spoken to me about it, but I console myself with thinking that none of those men would mind letting their boys go to sea, and there is as much wickedness in Hull or Swansea as anywhere on earth.”
Rachel shifted her position under the rug, and suddenly thrusting her head out, looked about her with curiosity, like a little monkey.
“Do the sailors believe in the Pope of Rome, father?” she asked in her precise voice.