The things we do!

Barnes should appear. There they sate for an hour looking at
Lawrence's picture of Lady Anne, leaning over a harp, attired in white
muslin; at Harlowe's portrait of Mrs. Newcome, with her two sons
simpering at her knees, painted at a time when the Newcome Brothers were
not the bald-headed, red-whiskered British merchants with whom the reader
has made acquaintance, but chubby children with hair flowing down their
backs, and quaint little swallow-tailed jackets and nankeen trousers. A
splendid portrait of the late Earl of Kew in his peer's robes hangs
opposite his daughter and her harp. We are writing of George the Fourth's
reign; I dare say there hung in the room a fine framed print of that
great sovereign. The chandelier is in a canvas bag; the vast sideboard,
whereon are erected open frames for the support of Sir Brian Newcome's
grand silver trays, which on dinner days gleam on that festive board, now
groans under the weight of Sir Brian's bluebooks. An immense receptacle
for wine, shaped like a Roman sarcophagus, lurks under the sideboard.


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