“You and your friend are the most perfect contrast,” remarked Lawrence as they were driving away.  “She is repose in action ­and you are activity in repose.”

“That sounds well,” Dolly answered after a pause.  “I am trying to think whether there is any meaning in it.”

“Certainly; or I hope so.  She is placidity itself; one wonders if she could be anything but placid; while you” ­

“Never mind about me,” said Dolly hastily.  “I am longing to know whether mother will like Venice.”

“Shall you?”

“Oh, I like everything.”

Which was the blissful truth.  Even anxiety did not prevent its being the truth; perhaps anxiety even at times put a keener edge upon enjoyment; Dolly fled from troublesome thoughts to the beauties of a landscape, the marvels of a piece of mediaeval architecture, the bewitchment of a bit of painting from an old master’s hand; and tasted, and lingered, and tasted over again in memory, all the beauty and the marvel and the bewitchment.  Lawrence smiled to himself at the thought of what she would find in Venice.

“There’s one thing I don’t make out,” Rupert broke in.

“Only one?” said Lawrence.  But the other was too intent to heed him.

“It bothers me, why the people that could build such a grand church, couldn’t make better houses for themselves.”

“Ah!” said Lawrence.  “You manage that better in America?”

“If we didn’t ­I’d emigrate!  We don’t have such splendid things as that old pile of stones,” ­looking back at the dome, ­“but our farmhouses are a long sight ahead of this country.”

“I guess, Rupert,” Dolly remarked now, “the men that built the dome did not build the farmhouses.”

“Who built the dome, as you call it, then?  But I don’t see any dome; there’s only a nest of towers.”

“The nobles built the great cathedrals.”

“And if you went through one of their houses,” said Lawrence, “you would not think they neglected number one.  You never saw anything like an old German schloss in America.”

“Then the nobles had all the money?”

“Pretty much so.  Except the rich merchants in some of the cities; and they built grand churches and halls and the like, and made themselves happy with magnificence at home in other ways; not architecture.”

“I am glad I don’t belong here,” said Rupert.  “But don’t the people know any better?”

“Than what?”

“Than to let the grand folks have it all their own way?”

“They were brought up to it,” said Lawrence.  “That’s just what they like.”

“I expect they’ll wake up some day,” said Rupert.  Which observation Lawrence did not think worthy of answer; as it was ahead of the time and of him equally.

They made no unnecessary delay now in going on to Venice.  I think Lawrence had had a secret design to see some one of the great gaming watering-places; and they had come back to the banks of the Rhine on purpose.  But, however, both Dolly and her mother were in such haste that he could not induce them by any motive of curiosity or interest to stop.  Dolly indeed had a great horror of those places, and did not want, she said, to see how beautiful they were.  She hoped for her father’s coming to them in Venice; and Mrs. Copley with the nervous restlessness of an invalid had set her mind on that goal, and would not look at anything short of it.  So they only passed through Wiesbaden and went on.

But Dolly did want to see Switzerland.  When the party came to the lake of Constance, however, Mrs. Copley declined that proposal.  Everybody went to Switzerland, she said; and she did not care about it.  The hope would have fallen through, only that Lawrence, seeing Dolly’s disappointment, proposed taking a route through the Tyrol.  Comparatively few people went there, he assured Mrs. Copley; and furthermore, that it was as good a way to Venice as any other.  Mrs. Copley gave consent; and to Dolly’s immeasurable and inexpressible satisfaction through the Tyrol they went.  Nothing could spoil it, even although Mrs. Copley every day openly regretted her concession and would have taken it back if she could.  The one of them was heartily sorry, the other as deeply contented, when finally the plains of Lombardy were reached.

It was evening and rainy weather when they came to the last stage of their journey, and left the carriage of which Mrs. Copley had grown so weary.

“What sort of a place is this?” she asked presently.

“Not much of a place,” said Lawrence.  “We will leave it as fast as possible.”

“Well, I should hope so.  What are these things? and is that a canal?”

“We should call it a canal in our country,” said Rupert; “but there there’d be something at the end of it.”

“But what are those black things?” Mrs. Copley repeated.  “Do you want me to get into one of them?  I don’t like it.”

“They are gondolas, mother; Venetian gondolas.  We must get into one, if we want to go to Venice.”

“Where is Venice?” said Mrs. Copley, looking over the unpromising landscape.

“I don’t know,” said Dolly, laughing, “but Mr. St. Leger knows.  We shall be there in a little while mother, if you’ll only get in.”

“I don’t like boats.  And I never saw such boats as those in my life,” said Mrs. Copley, holding back.  “I would rather keep the carriage and go on as we came; though all my bones are aching.  I would rather go in the carriage.”

“But you cannot, mother; there are no carriages here.  The way is by water; and boats are the only vehicles used in Venice.  We may as well get accustomed to them.”

“No carriages!”

“Why, surely you knew that before.”

“I didn’t.  I knew there were things to go on the canals; I never knew they were such forlorn-looking things; but I supposed there were carriages to go in the streets.  Are there no carts either?  How is the baggage going?”

“There are no streets, mother.  The ways are all water ways, and the carriages are gondolas; and it is just as lovely as it can be.  Come, let us try it.”

“What are the houses built on?”

“Mother, suppose you get in, and we’ll talk as we go along.  We had better get out of the rain; don’t you think so?  It is falling quite fast.”

“I had rather be in the rain than in the sea.  Dolly, if it isn’t too far, I’ll walk.”

“It is too far, dear mother.  You could not do that.  It is a long way yet.”

Lawrence stood by, biting his lips between impatience and a sense of the ridiculous; and withal admiring the tender, delicate patience of the girl who gently coaxed and reasoned and persuaded, and finally moved Mrs. Copley to suffer herself to be put in the gondola, on the forward deck of which Rupert had been helping the gondoliers to stow some of the baggage.  Dolly immediately took her place beside her mother; the two young men followed, and the gondola pushed off.  Mrs. Copley found herself comfortable among the cushions, felt that the motion of the gondola was smooth, assured herself that it would not turn over; finally felt at leisure to make observations again.

“We can’t see anything here,” she remarked, peering out first on one side, then on the other.

“There is nothing to see,” said Lawrence, “but the banks of the canal.”

“Very ugly banks, too.  Are we going all the way by water now?”

“All the way, to our hotel door.”

“Do the boatmen know where to go?”

“Yes.  Have no fear.”

“Why don’t they have streets in Venice?”

“Mother, don’t you remember, the city is built on sand banks, and the sea flows between?  The only streets possible are like this.  Could anything be better?  This motion will not fatigue you; and are not your cushions comfortable?”

“The sea, Dolly?” cried Mrs. Copley, catching the word.  “You never told me that.  If the sea comes in, it must be rough sometimes.”

“No, mother; it is a shallow level for miles and miles, covered at high tide by a few feet of water, and at low tide bare.  Venice is built on the sand banks of islands which rise above this level.”

“What ever made people choose such a ridiculous place to build a city, when there was good ground enough?”

“The good ground was not safe from enemies, mother, dear.  The people fled to these sand islands for safety.”

“Enemies!  What enemies?”

So the history had to be further gone into; in the midst of which Mrs. Copley burst out again.

“I’m so tired of this canal! ­just mud banks and nothing else.  How much longer is it to last?”

“We shall come to something else by and by.  Have patience,” said Lawrence.

But the patience of three of them was tried, before they fairly emerged from the canal, and across a broader water saw the lines of building and the domes of Venice before them.

“You’ll soon be out of the gondola now, mother, dear,” said Dolly delightedly.  For the rain clouds had lifted a little, and the wide spread of the lagoon became visible, as well as the dim line of the city; and Dolly’s heart grew big.  Mrs. Copley’s was otherwise.

“I’ll never get into one again,” she said, referring to the gondolas.  “I don’t like it.  I don’t feel as if I was anywhere.  There’s another, ­there’s two more.  Are they all painted black?”

“It is the fashion of Venetian gondolas.”

“Well! there is nothing like seeing for yourself.  I always had an idea gondolas were something romantic and pretty.  Is the water deep here?”

“No, very shallow,” Lawrence assured her.

“It looks just as if it was deep.  I wouldn’t have come to Venice if I had known what a forlorn place it is.”

But who shall tell the different impression on Dolly’s mind, when the city was really reached and the gondola entered one of those narrow water-ways between rows of palaces.  The rain had begun to come down again, it is true; a watery veil hung over the buildings, drops plashed busily into the canal; there were no beautiful effects of sunlight and shadow; and Lawrence himself declared it was a miserable coming to Venice.  But Dolly was in a charmed state.  She noted eagerly every strange detail; bridges, boats, people; was hardly sorry for the rain, she found so much to delight her in spite of it.

“What’s our man making such noises for?” cried Mrs. Copley.

“Just to give warning before he turns a corner,” Lawrence explained, “lest he should run against another gondola.”

“What would happen then?  Is the water deep enough to drown?  It would be horrid water to be drowned in!” said Mrs. Copley shuddering.

“No danger, mother; we are not going to try it,” Dolly said soothingly.

“Nobody is ever drowned in Venetian canals,” said Lawrence.  “They will carry us safe to our hotel, Mrs. Copley; never fear.”

“But hasn’t the water risen?” she exclaimed presently.

“It is up to the steps of that house there.”

“It is up to all the steps, mother, so that people can get into their gondolas at their very door; don’t you see?”

“It goes ahead of everything!” exclaimed Rupert, who had scarce spoken.  “It’s like being in a fairy story.”

“I can’t see much beside water,” said Mrs. Copley.  “Water above and water below.  It must be unhealthy.  And I thought Venice had such beautiful old palaces.  I don’t see any of ’em.”

“We have passed several of them,” said Lawrence.

“I can see nothing but black walls ­except those queer painted sticks; what are they for?”

“To the gondolas in waiting.”

“What are they painted so for?”

“The colours belonging to the family arms.”

“Whose family?”

“The family to whom the house belongs.”

“Dolly,” said Mrs. Copley, “we shall not want to stay here long.  We might go on and try Rome.  Mrs. Thayer says spring-time is the best at Naples.”

“It will all look very different, Mrs. Copley, when you see it by sunlight,” said Lawrence.  “Wait a little.”

Dolly would have enjoyed every inch of the way, if her mother would have let her.  To her eyes the novel strangeness of the scene was entrancing.  Not beautiful, certainly; not beautiful yet; by mist and rain and darkness how should it be? but she relished the novelty.  The charmed stillness pleased her; the gliding gondolas; the but half revealed houses and palaces; the odd conveyance in which she herself was seated; the wonderful water-ways, the strange cries of the gondoliers.  It was not half spoiled for her, as it was; and she trusted the morning would bring for her mother a better mood.

Something of a better mood was produced that evening when Mrs. Copley found herself in a warm room, before a good supper.  But the next morning it still rained.  Dark skies, thick atmosphere, a gloomy outlook upon ways where no traveller for mere pleasure was to be seen; none but people bent on business of one sort or another.  Yet everything was delightful to Dolly’s eyes; the novelty was perfect, the picturesqueness undeniable.  What she could see of the lagoon, of the vessels at anchor, the flying gondolas, the canals and the bridges over them, and the beautiful Riva, put Dolly in a rapture.  Her eye roved, her heart swelled.  “O mother!” she exclaimed, “if father would only come!”

“What then?” said Mrs Copley dismally.  “He would take us away, I hope.”

“Oh, but not until we have seen Venice.”

“I have seen Venice enough to content me.  It is the wettest place I was ever in my life.”

“Why, it rains, mother.  Any place is wet when it rains.”

“This would be wet at all times.  I think the ground must have sunk, Dolly; people would never have built in the water so.  The ground must have sunk.”

“No, mother; I guess not.  It has been always just so.”

“What made them build here then, when there is all the earth beside?  What did they take to the water for?  And what are the houses standing on, any way?”

“Islands, mother, between which these canals run.  I told you before.”

“I should think the people hadn’t any sense.”

And nothing would tempt Mrs. Copley out that day.  Of course Dolly must stay at home too, though she would most gladly have gone about through the rainy, silent city, in one of those silent gondolas, and feed her eyes at every step.  However, she made herself and made her mother as comfortable as she could; got out her painting and worked at Rupert’s portrait, which was so successful that Lawrence begged she would begin upon him at once.

“You know the conditions,” she said.

“I accept them.  Finish one of me so good as that, and I will send it to my mother and ask her what she will give for it.”

“But not tell her?” ­

“Certainly not.”

“I find,” said Dolly slowly, “that it is a very great compliment for a lady to paint a gentleman’s likeness.”

“Why?”

“She has to give so much attention to the lines of his face.  I shouldn’t like to paint some people.  But I’ll do anybody, for a consideration.”

“Your words are not flattering,” said Lawrence, “even if your actions are.”

“No,” said Dolly.  “Compliments are not in my way.”

And though she made a beginning upon St. Leger’s picture, and studied the lines of his face accordingly, he did not feel flattered.  Dolly’s clear, intelligent eyes looked at him as steadily and as unmovedly as if he had been a Titian.

The next day brought a change.  If Dolly had watched from her balcony with interest the day before, now she was breathless with what she found.  The sun was shining bright, a breeze was rippling the waters of the lagoon, and gently fluttering a sail and a streamer here and there; the beautiful water was enlivened with vessels of all kinds and of many lands, black gondolas darted about; and the buildings lining the shores of the lagoon stood to view in their beauty and magnificence and variety before Dolly’s eye; the Doge’s palace, here and there a clock tower, here and there the bridge over a side canal.  “O mother!” she cried, “we have seen nothing like this! nothing like this!”

“I am glad it don’t rain at least,” said Mrs. Copley.  “But it can’t be healthy here, Dolly; it must be damp.”

And when they all met at breakfast, and plans for the day began to be discussed, she declared that she did not want to see anything.

“Not St. Mark’s?” said Lawrence.

“What is St. Mark’s?  It is just a church.  I am sure we have seen churches enough.”

“There is only one St. Mark’s in the world.”

“I don’t care if there were a dozen.  Is it better than the church we went to see ­at that village near Wiesbaden?”

“Limburg?  Much better.”

“Well ­that will do for me.”

“There is the famous old palace of the Doges; and the Bridge of Sighs, Mrs. Copley, and the prisons.”

“Prisons?  You don’t think I want to go looking at prisons, do you?  Why should I? what’s in the prisons?”

“Not much.  There has been, first and last, a good deal of misery in them.”

“And you think that is pleasant to look at?”

Dolly could not help laughing, and confessed she would like to see the prisons.

“Well, you may go,” said her mother. “I don’t want to.”

Lawrence saw that Dolly’s disappointment was like to be bitter.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll show you, Mrs. Copley, if you’ll trust yourself to go out,” he said.  “I have got a commission from my mother which must take me into one of the wonderful shops of curiosities here.  You never saw such a shop.  Old china, of the rarest, and old furniture of the most delightful description, and old curiosities of art out of decayed old palaces, caskets, vases, trinkets, mirrors, and paintings.”

Mrs. Copley demurred.  “Can we go there in a carriage?”

“No such thing to be had, except a gondola carriage.  Come! you will like it.  Why, Mrs. Copley, the streets are no broader than very narrow alleys.  Carriages would be of no use.”

Mrs. Copley demurred, but was tempted.  The gondola went better by day than in the night.  Once out, Lawrence used his advantage and took the party first to the Place of St. Mark, where he delighted Dolly with a sight of the church.  Mrs. Copley was too full of something else to admire churches.  She waited and endured, while Dolly’s eyes and mind devoured the new feast given to them.  They went into the church, up to the roof, and came out to the Piazza again.

“It is odd,” said Dolly ­“I see it is beautiful; I see it is magnificent; more of both than I can say; and yet, it does not give me the feeling of respect I felt for that old dome at Limburg.”

“But,” said Lawrence; “that won’t do, you know.  St. Mark’s and Limburg! that opinion cannot stand.  What makes you say so?”

“I don’t know,” said Dolly.  “I have a feeling that the people who built that were more in earnest than the people who built this.”

“More in earnest?  I beg your pardon!” said Lawrence.  “What can you mean?  I should say people were in earnest enough here, to judge by the riches of the place.  Just see the adornment everywhere, and the splendour.”

“Yes,” said Dolly, “I see.  It is partly that.  Though there was adornment, and riches too, at the other place.  But the style of it is different.  Those grave old towers at Limburg seemed striving up into the sky.  I don’t see any striving here; in the building, I mean.”

“Why, there are pinnacles enough,” said Lawrence, in comical inability to fathom her meaning, or answer her.

“Yes,” said Dolly; “and domes; but the pinnacles do not strive after anything, and the cupolas seem to settle down like great extinguishers upon everything like striving.”

Lawrence laughed, and thought in his own mind that Dolly was a little American, wanting culture, and knowing nothing about architecture.

“What is that great long building?” Mrs. Copley now inquired.

“That, mother? ­that is the palace of the Doges.  Where is the Bridge of Sighs?”

They went round to look at it from the Ponte della Paglia.  Nearer investigation had to be deferred, or, Dolly saw, it would be too literally a bridge of sighs to them that morning.  They turned their backs on the splendours, ecclesiastical and secular, of the Place of St. Mark, and proceeded to the store of second-hand curiosities St. Leger had promised Mrs. Copley, the visit to which could no longer be deferred.  Dolly was in a dream of delight all the way.  Sunlight on the old palaces, on the bridges over the canals, on the wonderful carvings of marbles, on the strange water-ways; sunlight and colour; ay, and shadow and colour too, for the sun could not get in everywhere.  Between the beauty and picturesqueness, and the wealth of old historic legend and story clustering about it everywhere, Dolly’s dream was entrancing.

“I do not know half enough about Venice,” she remarked by the way.  “Rupert, we must read up.  As soon as I can get the books,” she added with a laugh.

However, Dolly was susceptible to more than one sort of pleasure; and when the party had reached the Jew’s shop, she was perhaps as much pleased though not so much engrossed as her mother.  For Mrs. Copley, figuratively speaking, was taken off her feet.  This was another thing from the Green vaults and the treasure chamber of Limburg; here the wonders and glories were not unattainable, if one had the means to reach them, that is; and not admiration only, but longing, filled Mrs. Copley’s mind.

“I must have that cabinet,” she said.  “I suppose we can do nothing till your father comes, Dolly.  Do write and tell him to bring plenty of money along, for I shall want some.  Such a chance one does not have often in one’s life.  And that cup!  Dolly, I must have that cup; it’s beyond everything I ever did see!”

“Mother, look at this ivory carving.”

“That’s out of my line,” said Mrs. Copley with a slight glance.  “I should call that good for nothing, now.  What’s the use of it?  But, O Dolly, see this sideboard!”

“You don’t want that, mother.”

“Why don’t I?  The price is not so very much.”

“Think of the expense of getting it home.”

“There is no such great difficulty in that.  You must write your father, Dolly, to send if he does not come, at once.  I should not like to leave these things long.  Somebody else might see them.”

“Hundreds have seen them already, Mrs. Copley,” said Lawrence.  “There’s time enough.”

“I’d rather not trust to that.”

“What things do you want, dear mother, seriously?  Anything?”

Dolly’s voice carried a soft insinuation that her mother’s wanting anything there was a delusion; Mrs. Copley flamed out.

“Do you think I am coming into such a place as this, Dolly, and going to let the chance slip?  I must have several of these things.  I’ll tell you.  This cup ­that isn’t much.  Now that delicious old china vase ­I do not know what china it is, but I’ll find out; there is nothing like it, I don’t believe, in all Boston.  I have chosen that sideboard; that is quite reasonable.  You would pay quite as much in Boston, or in London, for a common handsome bit of cabinet-maker’s work; while this is ­just look at it, Dolly; see these drawers, see these compartments ­that’s for wine and cordials, you know” ­

“We don’t want wine and cordials,” said Dolly.

“See the convenience and the curiousness of these arrangements; and look at the inlaying, child!  It’s the loveliest thing I ever saw in my life.  Oh, I must have that!  And it would be a sin to leave this screen, Dolly.  Where ever do you suppose that came from?”

“Eastern work,” said Lawrence.

“What eastern work?”

“Impossible for me to say.  Might have belonged to the Great Mogul, by the looks of it.  Do you admire that, Mrs. Copley?”

“How should it come here?”

“Here? the very place!” said Lawrence.  “What was there rare or costly in the world, that did not find its way to Venice and into the palaces of the old nobles?”

“But how came it here?”

“Into this curiosity shop?  The old nobles went to pieces, and their precious things went to auction; and good Master Judas or Master Levi bought them.”

“And these things were in the palaces of the old nobles?”

“Many of them.  Perhaps all of them.  I should say, a large proportion.”

“That makes them worth just so much the more.”

“You need not tell Master Levi that.  And you have admired so much this morning, Mrs. Copley, if you will take my advice, it will be most discreet to come away without making any offer.  Do not let him think you have any purpose of buying.  I am afraid he will put on a fearful price, if you do.”

Whether Lawrence meant this counsel seriously, or whether it was a feint to get Mrs. Copley safely out of the shop, Dolly was uncertain; she was grateful to Lawrence all the same.  No doubt he had seen that she was anxious.  He had been in fact amused at the elder lady not more than interested for the younger one; Dolly’s delicate attempts to draw off her mother from thoughts of buying had been so pretty, affectionate, and respectful in manner, sympathising, and yet steady in self-denial.  Mrs. Copley was hard to bring off.  She looked at Lawrence, doubtful and antagonistic, but his suggestion had been too entirely in her own line not to be appreciated.  Mrs. Copley looked and longed, and held her tongue; except from exclamations.  They got out of the shop at last, and Dolly made a private resolve not to be caught there again if she could help it.

In the afternoon she devoted herself to painting Lawrence’s picture.  Her first purpose had been to take a profile or side view of him; but St. Leger declared, if the likeness was for his mother she would never be satisfied if the eyes did not look straight into her eyes; so Dolly had to give that point up; and accordingly, while she studied him, he had full and equal opportunity to study her.  It was a doubtful satisfaction.  He could rarely meet Dolly’s eyes, while yet he saw how coolly they perused him, how calmly they studied him as an abstract thing.  He wanted to see a little shyness, a little consciousness, a little wavering, in those clear, wise orbs; but no!  Dolly sat at her work and did it as unconcernedly as if she were five years old, to all appearance; with as quiet, calm poise of manner and simplicity of dignity as if she had been fifty.  But how pretty she was!  Those eyes of hers were such an uncommon mingling of childhood and womanhood, and so lovely in cut and colour and light; and the mouth was the most mobile thing ever known under that name, and charming in every mood of rest or movement.  The whole delicate face, the luxuriant brown hair, the little hands, the supple, graceful figure, Lawrence studied over and over again; till he felt it was not good for him.

“Painting a person must make you well acquainted with him,” he began after a long silence, during which Dolly had been very busy.

“Outside knowledge,” said Dolly.

“Does not the outside always tell something of what is within?”

“Something,” Dolly allowed in the same tone.

“What do you see in me?”

“Mrs. St. Leger will know, when she gets this.”

“What you see in me?”

“Well, no ­perhaps not.”

“Couldn’t you indulge me and tell me?”

“Why should I?”

“Out of kindness.”

“I do not know whether it would be a kindness,” said Dolly slowly.

“You see, Dolly, a fellow can’t stand everything for ever!  I want to know what you think of me, and what my chances are.  Come!  I’ve been pretty patient, it strikes me.  Speak out a bit.”

Mrs. Copley was lying down to rest, and Rupert had left the room.  The pair were alone.

“What do you want me to say, Mr. St. Leger?”

“Tell me what you see in me.”

“What would be the good of that?  I see an Englishman, to begin with.”

“You see that in me?”

“Certainly.”

“I am glad, but I didn’t know it.  Is that an advantage in your eyes?”

“Am I an Englishwoman?”

“Not a bit of it,” said Lawrence, “nor like it.  I never saw an English girl the least like you.  But you might grow into it, Dolly, don’t you think?”

She lifted her face for an instant and gave him a flashing glance of fun.

“Won’t you try, Dolly?”

“I think I would just as lieve be an American.”

“Why?  America is too far off.”

“Very good when you get there,” said Dolly contentedly.

“But not better than we have on our side?”

“Well, you have not all the advantages on your side,” said Dolly, much occupied with her drawing.

“Go on, and tell me what we have not.”

“I doubt the wisdom.”

“I beg the favour.”

“It would not please you.  In the first place, you would not believe me.  In the second place, you would reckon an advantage what I reckon a disadvantage.”

“What do you mean?” said Lawrence, very curious and at the same time uneasy.  Dolly tried to get off, but he held her to the point.  At last Dolly spoke out.

“Mr. St. Leger, women have a better time in my country.”

“A better time?  Impossible.  There are no homes in the world where wives and daughters are better cared for or better loved.  None in the world!”

“Ah,” said Dolly, “they are too well cared for.”

“How do you mean?”

“Too little free.”

“Free?” said Lawrence.  “Is that what you want?”

“And not quite respected enough.”

“Dolly, you bewilder me.  What ever did you see or hear to make you think our women are not respected?”

“I dare say it is a woman’s view,” said Dolly lightly.  But Lawrence eagerly begged her to explain or give an instance of what she meant.

“I have not seen much, you know,” said Dolly, painting away.  “But I heard a gentleman once, at his own dinner-table, and when there was company present ­I was not the only visitor ­I heard him tell his wife that the soup was nasty.”

And Dolly glanced up to see how Lawrence took it.  She judiciously did not tell him that the house was his own father’s, and the gentleman in question Mr. St. Leger himself.  Lawrence was silent at first.  I presume the thing was not so utterly unfamiliar as that he should be much shocked; while he did perceive that here was some difference of the point of view between Dolly’s standpoint and his own, and was not ready to answer.  Dolly glanced up at him significantly:  still Lawrence did not find words.

“That didn’t mean anything!” at last he said.  Dolly glanced at him again.

“I suppose the soup wasn’t good.  Why not say so?”

“No reason why he should not say so, at a proper time and place.”

“It didn’t mean any harm, Dolly.”

“I suppose not.”

“Then what’s the matter?”

“It is not the way we do,” said Dolly.  “In America, I mean.  Not when we are polite.”

“Do you think husband and wife ought to be polite to each other ­in that way?”

“In what way?”

“That they should not call things by their right names?”

Here Dolly lifted her sweet head and laughed; a merry, ringing, musical, very much amused laugh.

“Ah, you see you are an Englishman,” she said.  “That is the way you will speak to your wife.”

“I will never speak to you, Dolly, in any way you don’t like.”

“No” said Dolly gravely, and returning to her work.

“Aren’t you ever going to give me a little bit of encouragement?” said he.  “I have been waiting as patiently as I could.  May I tell my mother who did the picture, when I send it?”

“Say it was done by a deserving young artist, in needy circumstances; but no names.”

“But that’s not true, Dolly.  Your father is as well off as ever he was; his embarrassments are only temporary.  He is not in needy circumstances.”

“I said nothing about my father.  Here, Mr. St. Leger ­come and look at it.”

The finished likeness was done with great truth and grace.  Dolly’s talent was an extraordinary one, and had not been uncultivated.  She had done her best in the present instance, and the result was a really delicious piece of work.  Lawrence saw himself given to great advantage; truly, delicately, characteristically.  He was delighted.

“I will send it right off,” he said.  “Mamma has nothing of me half so good.”

“Ask her what she thinks it is worth.”

“And I want you to paint a duplicate of this, for me; for myself.”

“A duplicate!” cried Dolly.  “I couldn’t.”

“Another likeness of me then, in another view.  Set your own price.”

“But I shall never make my fortune painting you,” said Dolly.  “You must get me some other customers; that is the bargain.”

“What notion is this, Dolly?  It is nonsense between me and you.  Why not let things be settled?  Let us come to an understanding, and give up this ridiculous idea of painting for money; ­if you are in earnest.”

“I am always in earnest.  And we are upon an excellent understanding, Mr. St. Leger.  And I want money.  The thing is as harmonious as possible.”