Equally ingenuous was his wife, but with results that argued a shallower nature.  Mrs. Bradshaw had the heartiest and frankest contempt for all things foreign; in Italy she deemed herself among a people so inferior to the English that even to discuss the relative merits of the two nations would have been ludicrous.  Life “abroad” she could not take as a serious thing; it amused or disgusted her, as the case might be—­never occasioned her a grave thought.  The proposal of this excursion, when first made to her, she received with mockery; when she saw that her husband meant something more than a joke, she took time to consider, and at length accepted the notion as a freak which possibly would be entertaining, and might at all events be indulged after a lifetime of sobriety.  Entertainment she found in abundance.  Though natural beauty made little if any appeal to her, she interested herself greatly in Vesuvius, regarding it as a serio-comic phenomenon which could only exist in a country inhabited by childish triflers.  Her memory was storing all manner of Italian absurdities—­everything being an absurdity which differed from English habit and custom—­to furnish her with matter for mirthful talk when she got safely back to Manchester and civilization.  With respect to the things which Jacob was constraining himself to study—­antiquities, sculptures, paintings, stored in the Naples museum—­her attitude was one of jocose indifference or of half-tolerant contempt.  Puritanism diluted with worldliness and a measure of common sense directed her views of art in general.  Works such as the Farnese Hercules and the group about the Bull she looked upon much as she regarded the wall-scribbling of some dirty-minded urchin; the robust matron is not horrified by such indecencies, but to be sure will not stand and examine them.  “Oh, come along, Jacob!” she exclaimed to her husband, when, at their first visit to the Museum, he went to work at the antiques with his Murray.  “I’ve no patience you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

The Bradshaws were staying at the pension selected by Mrs. Lessingham.  Naturally the conversation at dinner turned much on that lady and her niece.  With Cecily’s father Mr. Bradshaw had been well acquainted, but Cecily herself he had not seen since her childhood, and his astonishment at meeting her as Miss Doran was great.

“What kind of society do they live among?” he asked of Spence.  “Tip-top people, I suppose?”

“Not exactly what we understand by tip-top in England.  Mrs. Lessingham’s family connections are aristocratic, but she prefers the society of authors, artists—­that kind of thing.”

“Queer people for a young girl to make friends of, eh?”

“Well, there’s Mallard, for instance.”

“Ah, Mallard, to be sure.”

Mrs. Bradshaw looked at her hostess and smiled knowingly.

“Miss Doran is rather fond of talking about Mr. Mallard,” she remarked.  “Did you notice that, Miriam?”