"We mustn't forget our serious object, dear," said momma, as we rolled over the cobblestones—"our literary object. What shall we note this morning? The broad streets, the elegant shops—do look at that one! Darling, is it absolutely necessary to go to the Louvre this morning? There are some things we really need."
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 themselves—until momma interrupted him. "Don't you think we might be silent for a time, Alexander," she said.
Momma does call him Alexander sometimes. I didn't like to mention it before, but it can't be concealed for ever. She says it's because Joshua always costs her an effort, and every woman ought to have the right to name her own husband.
"Let us offer to all this genius," she continued, indicating it, "the tribute of sealing our lips."
The Senator will always oblige. "Mine are sealed, Augusta," he replied, and so we sat in silence for the next ten minutes. But I could see by his expression, in connection with the angle at which his hat was tipped, that he was comparing the productions before him with the future old masters of Chicago, and wishing it were possible to live long enough to back Chicago.