“Yes, most of them have artificial limbs,” I answered. “All they do now is to pose in vaudeville for the entertainment of humanity.” As we neared the room where I was to meet Mrs. Mullet we bade the young people go their way and look for us at the door about twelve-thirty.
We found the lady copying the portraits of our first parents. Her breast began to heave in a storm of emotion as she looked at us.
“Who are your friends?” I quickly asked, by way of diverting her thought.
“This is Adam and Eve,” said she, almost tearfully.
“I'm glad to see that they don't make company of us,” Betsey declared.
“They receive everybody in that same suit of clothes,” I answered. “And Eve's entertainment is so simple—apples right off the tree!”
“I don't see but that they look just as aristocratic as they would if they had sprung from poor but respectable parents,” said Betsey.
“Adam looks like a rather shiftless, good-natured young fellow, easily led, but, on the whole, I like them both,” was my answer. “They're frank and open and aboveboard. If you're looking for your first ancestors and must have them, I don't think you could do better. Certainly Mr. Darwin has nothing to offer that compares with them.”
Betsey and I had our little dialogues about many objects in our way, and now we had got Mrs. Mullet righted, so to speak, and on a firm working basis. She showed us through the gallery. I remember that she was particularly interested in the Botticelli paintings.
Mrs. Mullet said that she adored the Madonna—a case of compound adoration, for in its adoring group Botticelli succeeded in painting the most inhuman piety that the world has seen.