This is partly because there are, I think, better paintings of his in London than at Amsterdam.

At least it seems to me that his picture in our National Gallery of the waiting maid is finer than anything by De Hooch in Holland.

But in no other work of his that I know is his simple charm so apparent as in "The Store Cupboard".

This is surely the Christmas supplement carried out to its highest power--and by its inventor.

The thousands of domestic scenes which have proceeded from this one canvas make the memory reel; and yet nothing has staled the prototype.