"Never mind," said the housekeeper. "We have the day before us."

"It is almost twelve," said Dolly, looking at her watch. "Before we get there it will be one. I am a great deal of trouble to you, I fear, Mrs. Jersey; more than I meant to be."

"My dear, it's no trouble. I am happy to be of any use to you. What sort of a chain is that you wear, Miss Dolly?"

"Curious, isn't it?" said Dolly. "It was given me long ago. It is woven of threads of a ship cable."

"It is a beautiful chain," said her friend, examining it admiringly. "But that is very clever, Miss Dolly! I should never fancy it was a piece of cable. Is there an anchor anywhere?"

"No," said Dolly, laughing. "Though I am not sure," she added thoughtfully. "My memory goes back along this chain a great way;—back to the time when I was a little girl, quite little, and very happy at school and with a dear aunt, whom I lived with then. And back there at the end of the chain are all those pleasant images; and one most beautiful day, when we went to visit a ship; a great man-of-war. A most beautiful day!" Dolly repeated with the accent of loving recollection.

"And you brought back a piece of cable from the ship, and braided this?"

"No. Oh no! I did not do it; I could not. It was done for me."

"By a friend's fingers?"

"Yes, I suppose you may say so," said Dolly; "though it is a friend I have never seen since then. I suppose I never shall. But I always wear the chain. Oh, how long that seems ago!—Is childhood the happiest time of a person's life, Mrs. Jersey?"

"Maybe I might say yes. Miss Dolly; but if I did, I should mean not what you mean. I should mean the little-child life that one can have when one is old. When the heart says, 'Not my will, but Thine'—when it says, 'Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.' You know, the Master said, 'Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'"

"I don't believe I am just as much of a child, then, as I used to be," remarked Dolly.

"Get back to it, my dear, as fast as you can."

"But when one isn't a child, things are so different. It is easy to trust and give up for a child's things; but when one is a woman"——

"It is just the same, dear Miss Dolly! Our great affairs, they are but child's matters to the Lord's eyes. The difference is in ourselves—when our hearts get proud, and our self-will gets up."

"I wish I could be like a child now," said Dolly from the depths of her heart. "I feel as if I were carrying the whole family on my shoulders, and as if I must do it."

"You cannot, my dear! Your shoulders will break. 'Casting your care upon Him,' the Bible says—'for He careth for you.'"

"One does not see Him"—— said Dolly, with her eyes very full.

"Faith can see," the housekeeper returned; and then there was a long silence; while the carriage rattled along over the streets, and threaded its way through the throng of business, or bread-seekers or pleasure-seekers. So many people! Dolly wondered if every one of them carried his secret burden of care, as she was doing; and if they were, she wondered how the world lived on and bore the multitudinous strain. Oh, to be a child, in the full, blessed sense of the term!



CHAPTER XVI.

A FIGHT.

The cab stopped, and Dolly's heart gave a great thump against her ribs. What was she afraid of?

Mrs. Jersey said she would wait in the cab, and Dolly applied herself to the door-knocker. A servant came, a stupid one seemingly.

"Is Mr. Copley at home?"

"I dunno."

"Will you find out, please?"

"Jemima, who's that?" called a voice of authority from behind the scenes.

"Somebody arter the gentleman, ma'am. I dunno, is he in his room?"

The owner of the voice came forward; a portly, respectable landlady. She surveyed Dolly, glanced at the cab, became very civil, invited Dolly in, and sent the maid upstairs to make inquiries, declaring she did not know herself whether the gentleman were out or in. Dolly would not sit down. The girl brought down word that Mr. Copley was not out of his bedroom yet.

"I went in the parlour, ma'am, and knocked, ma'am; and I might as well ha' axed my broom, ma'am."

"I'll go up," said Dolly hastily; and waiting for no answer, she brushed past landlady and maid and ran up the stairs. Then paused.

"Which rooms? on the first floor?"

The woman of the house came bustling after her up the stairs and opened the door of a sitting-room. It was very comfortably furnished.

"You couldn't go wrong, ma'am," she said civilly, "I 'ave no one in my rooms at this present, except Mr. Copley. I suppose you are his daughter, ma'am?"

"His daughter," Dolly repeated, standing still and facing the landlady, and keeping down all outward expression of the excitement which was consuming her. She knew she kept it down; she faced the woman steadily and calmly, and the landlady was more and more humbly civil. "Mr. Copley is not ill?" Dolly went on.

"Oh, dear, no, ma'am! not to call h'ill. Mr. Copley is in enjoyment of very good 'ealth; as I 'ave occasion to know, ma'am, who cooks his meals for him. I can allers tell by that. When a gentleman or a lady 'as good taste for their victuals, I think it's no 'arm if they sleeps a little long in the morning; it's a trifle onconvenient to the 'ouse, it may be, when things is standing roun', but it's good for theirselves, no doubt, and satisfyin' and they'll be ready for their breakfast when they comes h'out. And shall I wake Mr. Copley for you, ma'am? It's time for him, to be sure."

"Thank you, no; you need not do anything. I will sit here and wait a little."

"And Mr. Copley's coffee'll be ready for him, ma'am, when he's ready for h'it. Mr. Copley, he sets a good deal by his coffee, and likes it made particular, and he gets it made particular. Didn't Mr. Copley tell you, ma'am, as his coffee was satisfactory?"

"I daresay it is," said Dolly; "and I will ring for it when my father wants it. You may leave me; I will wait here."

The landlady had been going round the room, picking up a bit of paper here and wiping her apron over a table there, the while taking a careful view of Dolly and examining her all over. Dolly's figure and manner were irreproachable; and with renewed proffers of service, the woman at last, having no choice, left the room. Dolly stood still a moment then, collecting herself and looking at the situation. Past one o'clock, and her father not out of his room! That was not like any of his habits, as she knew them; and Dolly stood with the shadow of a nameless fear falling across her spirit. Nameless, and formless; she did not discern it clearly or attempt to examine it; the mere shadow of it chilled her to the bone. She stood thinking, and trembling. Not at his office for several days, though business must be calling for him; not out of his room at one o'clock in the afternoon, though all his old simple home habits were opposed to such a waste of daylight! Should she try to arouse him? Dolly did try, after a little while; for she could not bear the still waiting; she knocked at the inner door; but she got no response. Then she went down to Mrs. Jersey at the cab, and told her the state of the case, begging her to go away and not wait any longer. She must wait, and it was impossible to say how long.

"Miss Dolly, does your father often rise so late?"

"They say so. He never used, but it seems he does now."

"It's the way with a many," said the housekeeper. "Never mind me, my dear. I'll wait here, or if I get tired of that, I will come in and sit with the landlady. I shall not leave you."

Inwardly thankful, Dolly went back to her post and sat down and looked around her. She could tell nothing by the room or its contents. Both were nice enough; there was a slight smell of cigars, that was all to find fault with. Dolly waited. The stillness grew dreadful. To seventeen years old the first trouble comes hard; albeit seventeen years old has also a great fund of spirit and strength to meet and conquer trouble. But what was the trouble here? It was not the unusual scantiness of means; that could soon be made right, if other things were not wrong which wrought to cause it. On the other hand, if her father had fallen irreparably into bad habits—Dolly would not admit the "irreparably" into her thoughts. But it was bitter to her that children should ever have to find their parents in the wrong; dreadful to have occasion to be ashamed of them. She knew, if her case proved such a one, it would be only one of a great many; she had read of such things, although chiefly among another class of people who were of coarser habits and duller natures, and if they fell had less distance to fall to get to the lowest level of society. But her father!—Dolly cowered with her head down upon the back of a chair, and a cry in her heart calling upon his name. Her father? could she have to blush for him? All her nature revolted against it; the thought came over her as a thick black cloud, so thick that for the moment light was banished from all her little landscape. Oh, how can fathers do such things! and how can daughters live under them! Death might be borne easier; but disgrace? Death would leave the loved one still her own; disgrace seemed to have a power of annihilation. Still, Dolly knew not that such trouble was really come upon her; alas, she did know too well that the fear of it had. And what a descent did that alone imply! She raised her head again, and sat with dry eyes and a beating heart, waiting.

At last she was sure she heard some movement in the inner room. She heard the click of things that were moved; the fall of a chair that was knocked over, sounds of steps. Finally the door opened, and Mr. Copley appeared on the threshold. The sight of him smote his daughter. His dress was carelessly thrown on; that was not so very remarkable, for Mr. Copley never was an exact man in matters of the toilet. It was not merely that. But Dolly's eye saw that his step was unsteady, his face dull and flushed, and his eye had a look which even a very little experience understands. His air was haggard, spiritless, hopeless; so unlike the alert, self-sufficient, confident manner of old, that Dolly's heart got a great wrench. And something in the whole image was so inexpressibly pitiful to her, that she did the very last thing it had been in her purpose to do; she fled to him with one bound, threw herself on his breast, and burst into a heartbreak of tears.

Poor Mr. Copley was greatly startled and sorely perplexed. He had not been prepared to see his daughter; and though miserably conscious that he offered ground enough himself for Dolly's passion, he could not yet be sure that it concerned him. It might be wrought by some other cause; and in sore dismay and uncertainty he was not able to bring out a word of question. Dolly sobbed, and sobbed; and putting her arms up around his neck strained him in an embrace that was most pitifully longing and tender. Mr. Copley felt the pitifulness; he did not know what it meant. It was not till Dolly had released him and was trying to dry her eyes that he brought out a question.

"What's the matter with you, Dolly?"

Dolly heard the thick and lumbering accent of his words, and burst forth in a despairing cry. "O father! what is the matter with you?"

"I'm all right," said poor Mr. Copley. "I'm all right. What are you here for?"

"I wanted to see you. Why did you never come down? You haven't been near us."

"I was coming—hindered always—I was coming, Dolly. How's your mother?"

Dolly made a great effort after voice and calmness.

"She is well—I mean, she is no worse than usual. Will you have your coffee, father?"

But Dolly's voice choked with a sob. Mr. Copley looked at her in a helpless kind of way and made no answer. Dolly rang the bell.

"How—a—how did you get here?" was the next question, put in evident embarrassment.

"You wouldn't come to Brierley, father; so I had to come to London. I came with a friend."

"St. Leger?"

"St. Leger! No, indeed. Oh, I came with a very nice friend, who took good care of me. Now, here's your breakfast."

Dolly was glad of the chance to get upon common everyday ground, till her breath should be free again. She helped arrange the dishes; dismissed the maid; poured out Mr. Copley's coffee and served him.

"Better take some yourself, Dolly. Had your breakfast? Let Mrs. Bunce do you another chop."

Dolly at first said no; but presently felt that she was faint and exhausted, and agreed to the suggestion. She rang for another cup and plate, and ordered the chop. Meanwhile Mr. Copley drank coffee and made a poor hand of the rest of his breakfast.

"What did you come up for, Dolly?"

"To see you, sir."

"You might have waited for that."

"But how long? I had waited."

"What's up?—if your mother's well."

"I wanted to talk to you, father, and I couldn't do it in letters; because there the talking was all on one side, and I wanted to hear what you would say."

"Why, didn't I answer you?"

"No, sir."

"Well, what do you want, Dolly?"

"I want a great deal, father. Wait, please, till I get my chop; for I cannot talk to you till I do."

"'Ill talking between a full man and a fasting,' eh? Well, here's your breakfast."

It was only the bespoken cup and plate, however, and Mr. Copley had to wait longer. It came at last, the chop; and till it came Dolly said no more. Her father watched her, and watched her, and could not take his eyes off her. The flush on her cheek and the sparkle in her eye, the moisture still lingering on her eyelashes, how sweet she was! and how indefinably lovely! Dolly had grown into a woman; she had the presence and poise that belong to a high-bred woman; and yet she had not lost her girlhood nor grown out of its artless graces; and as Mr. Copley looked he saw now and then a very childlike trembling of the under lip. It troubled his heart. He had been very uncomfortable ever since his meeting with his daughter; the discomfort began now to develope into the stings and throes of positive pain. What was she there for? whence had come that agony of tears? and why when those tears were pouring from her eyes did her soft arm clasp him so? did she want help from him? or for him? Mr. Copley grew extremely uneasy; restless and fidgeting. Dolly ate her chop and her potatoe, needing it, I fancy; and perhaps she wanted to gain time too. Mr. Copley had no appetite. He had none to begin with, and certainly Dolly's appearance had not given him what he had not before.

"You don't make much of a breakfast, father," Dolly observed.

"Never do," he returned. "No time to eat, when a man has just got up. A cup of coffee is the only thing. The French way is the best."

"You did not use to be up so late, in the old days."

"Don't think it's the best time either; but—you must do as the rest of the world do; swim with the—what is it?—swim with the current."

"How if the current goes the wrong way?"

"Can't help yourself; you must go along, if you are in it."

Dolly was silent, finishing her luncheon. She ate fast and hurriedly. Then she pushed her chair away and came round and sat upon her father's knee; laying one arm round his neck and looking into his face.

"Father," she said in her clear, musical voice, sweet as a bird's notes,—"father, suppose we get out of the current?"

"What current do you mean? It makes a great confusion to try to have your meals at a different hour from the rest of the world."

"I don't mean that, father."

"What have you come up to town for?"

"To see about it," said Dolly, with a smile that dimpled her cheeks most charmingly, and covered the anxiety she did not want to show.

"To see about what? Dolly, you are grown a woman."

"Yes, father."

"And, I declare you're a beautiful woman, child. It's time we were thinking of getting you married."

"You're not in a hurry, are you, father?"

"In a hurry!" said Mr. Copley, gazing at her admiringly. "Why, yes. I want you to be married while you can choose your place in the world, and enjoy it when you have got it. And you can choose now, Dolly."

"What, sir?"

"Your husband."

"But, father," cried Dolly, while her cheeks covered themselves with the most brilliant roses, "I cannot choose what is not presented to my choice!"

"No, child; take what is. That's what I am thinking of. Good enough too. Don't you like the ticket you have drawn?"

"Father," said Dolly, turning the tables now on her side, and laying her face in his neck, "I wish you would have nothing to do with lotteries or gaming!"

"I have nothing to do with lotteries, child."

"But with gaming?"

"What put such a thing into your head?"

Dolly hesitated, strained him a little closer in her embrace, and did not answer directly.

"Father, I wish you would!"

"What folly are you talking, Dolly?" said Mr. Copley angrily. "You are meddling with what you do not understand."

But Dolly only clung closer, and having once broken the ice would not now give back. She must speak now.

"Father," she said, half sobbing, yet commanding the sobs down, "we are getting ruined. We are losing each other. Mother and I live alone—we do not see you—we are poor—we have not money to pay our dues—mother is not getting better—and I am breaking my heart about her, and about you. O father, let us come and live together again."

Dolly got no answer to this outburst, and hardly was conscious that she got none, she was so eagerly trying to swallow down the emotion which threatened to master her voice. Mr. Copley had no answer ready.

"Father," Dolly began again, "mother wants to travel; she wants to go to Venice. Suppose we go?"

"Can't travel without money, Dolly. You say we haven't any."

"Would it cost more to travel than to live as we are living?"

"You say we cannot do that."

"Father, do you say so?"

"I am merely repeating your statements, Dolly, to show you how like a child you talk."

"Answer me as if I were a child then, father, and tell me what we can do. But don't let us go on living as we are doing!"

"I thought I had done the very best thing possible for your mother, when I got her that place down at—I forget what's the name of the place."

"Brierley."

"I thought I had done the very best thing for her, when I settled her there. Now she is tired of it."

"But father, we cannot pay our way; and it worries her."

"She is always worrying about something or other. If it wasn't that, it would be something else. Any man may be straightened for cash now and then. It happens to everybody. It is nothing to make a fuss about."

"But, father, if I cannot pay the servants, they must be without cash too; and that is hard on poor people."

"Not half so hard as on people above them," replied her father hastily. "They have ways and means; and they don't have a tenth or a hundredth as many wants, anyhow."

"But those they have are wants of necessary things," urged Dolly.

"Well, what do you want me to do?" said Mr. Copley, with as much of harshness in his manner as ever could come out towards Dolly. "I cannot coin money for you, well as I would like to do it."

"Father, let us take what we have got, and go to Venice! all together. We'll travel ever so cheaply and live ever so plainly; only let us go! Only let us go!"

"Think your mother'd like travelling second-class?" said Mr. Copley in the same way.

"She wouldn't mind so very much; and I wouldn't mind it at all. If we could only go."

"And what is to become of my business?"

Dolly did not dare give the answer that rose to her tongue, nor let her father know how much she knew. She came up on another side of the subject, and insisted that the consulate might be dispensed with. Mr. Copley did not need the office and might well be tired of it by this time. Dolly pleaded, and her father heard her with a half embarrassed, half sullen face; feeling her affectionate entreaties more than was at all convenient, and conscious at the same time of a whole side of his life that he would be ashamed his daughter should know; and afraid of her guessing it. Alas, for father and child both, when such a state of things comes about!

"Come, father!" said Dolly at last, touching her forehead to his forehead in a sweet kind of caress,—"I want you."

"Suppose I find somebody else to go with you instead of me?"

"Nobody else will do. Come, father! Do come."

"You might set off with Lawrence," said Mr. Copley as if considering, "and I might join you afterwards; at Venice, perhaps, or Nice, or somewhere. Hey?"

"That won't do. I would not go with Mr. Lawrence."

"Why not?"

"Too much of an honour for him."

"You need not be afraid of showing him too much honour, for he is willing to give you the greatest man can give to a woman."

Dolly coloured again, and again touched her forehead to her father's forehead and sat so, leaning against him. Maybe with an instinct of hiding her cheeks.

"Father, let us go to Venice!" she began again, leaving Mr. St. Leger. "Just think what fun it would be, to go all together. We have been living so long without you. I believe it would just make mother up. Think of seeing Venice together, father!—and then maybe we would go on to Geneva and get a look at Mont Blanc."

"Geneva is a place for lovers," said Mr. Copley.

"Why?"

"Romantic."

"Can't anybody else be romantic, except that sort of people? I am romantic,—and I do not care a straw about anybody but mother and you."

"Don't tell Mr. St. Leger that."

"He might as well know it. Come, father! Say you'll go."

It was hard to withstand her. The pure, gentle intonations rang upon Mr. Copley's soul almost like bells of doom, because he did withstand her. She was his saving good angel; he half knew it; he was ashamed before his child, and conscience knocked hard at the door of his heart; but the very shame he felt before her made her presence irksome to him, while yet it was, oh, so sweet! Alas, "he that doeth evil hateth the light." He was entangled in more than one sort of net, and he lacked moral power to break the meshes. The gentle fingers that were busy with the net, trying to unloose it, were a reproach and a torment to him. She must marry St. Leger; so his thoughts ran; it was the best thing that could happen to her; it was the best he could do for her. Then she would be secure, at all events.

"Dolly, why don't you like Lawrence?" he began.

"He's too handsome, father,—for one thing."

"I never heard of such a reason for a lady's dislike. That's play, Dolly."

"And he knows it; there's another thing."

"Well, of course he knows it. How can he help knowing it?"

"And he's too rich."

"Dolly, you are talking nonsense."

"And he knows that."

"He doesn't know he's too rich," said Mr. Copley, with a little bitterness. "No St. Leger ever did that."

"Well, father, that's what he is. Very handsome, and very rich. He is nothing else. He would suit some people admirably; but he don't suit me."

"What sort of thing would suit you?"

"A very perverse sort of a person, who is called Frank Collinshaw Copley."

"Well, you've got me," said her father, laughing a little at her. He could not help it. "You want something else besides."

"I don't, father, indeed."

"And, my child, money is necessary in this world. You cannot get along without money."

"Father, will you come to Venice? and we'll get along with very little money. Father, we must go, for mother. The doctor says so, and she is just longing to go. We ought to go as soon as ever you can be ready."

"You show how much you know about it, when you talk of Venice and a little money! You had better take Mr. St. Leger."

"Father, everybody says living is cheap in Switzerland."

"You talked of Venice."

"And Italy. The doctor says mother ought to stay some time at Nice, or Naples. Father, you can arrange it. Do! Give up the consulate, and let us take mother to Italy; and then home if you like. I don't much care, so that we have you." And again Dolly's forehead bent over to give a soft impact to her father's brown brow.

"Who did you come to town with?" he said suddenly. She told him.

"Well, now you had better go back with her, and I will see what I can do."

"You will go, father?"

"If I cannot immediately, I will send you and come on after."

"I cannot go without you, father. Oh, come, come!" And Dolly rained kisses upon his face, and stroked his forehead and cheeks, and was so entirely delicious in her tenderness and her sweetness, her love and her anxiety, that the heart of ordinary man could not stand it. Anything else became more easy than to refuse her. So Mr. Copley said he would go; and received a new harvest of caresses in reward, not wholly characterised by the usual drought of harvest-time, for some drops of joy and thankfulness still came falling, a sunlit shower.

"Now, my child," said her father, "you had better go back to your good housekeeper, and then back to your mother, and get all things ready for a start."

"Father, I can stay here to-night, can't I?"

Mr. Copley was not sure that he wanted her; yet he could not refuse to make inquiry. There was no difficulty; plenty of room; and Dolly joyously prepared herself to gather in the fruits of her victory, through that following care and those measures of security for want of which many a victory has been won in vain. Mrs. Jersey had long since been informed that she need not wait, and had driven away. Dolly now sent for her portmanteau, and established herself in her father's sitting room.

Mr. Copley looked on, helplessly; half delighted, half bored. He would not have chosen to have Dolly there just then; yet being there she was one of the most lovely visions that a father's eye could rest upon. Grown to be a woman—yes, she was; ordering and arranging things with a woman's wisdom and skill; ordering him, Mr. Copley felt with a queer sensation; and yet, so simple and free and sweet in all her words and ways as might have become seven instead of seventeen. St. Leger might be glad if he could get her! Yet she was inconvenient to Mr. Copley. She stood in his way, like the angel in Balaam's; only not with a sword drawn, but with loving looks, and kisses, and graces, and wiles of affection; and who could withstand an angel? He gave up trying; he let her have her way; and when dinner time came, Dolly and he had an almost jovial dinner. Until Mr. Copley rose from table, unlocked a cupboard, and took out a bottle of wine. Dolly's heart gave a sudden leap that meant a throe of pain. Was there another fight to be fought? How should she fight another fight? But the emergency pressed her.

"O father," she cried, "is that sherry?"

"No, it is better," said her father—pouring out a glass,—"it is Madeira."

Dolly saw the hand tremble that grasped the bottle, and she sprang up. She went round to her father, fell down on her knees before him, and laid one hand on the hand that had just seized the glass, the other on his shoulder.

"Please, father, don't take it! please don't take it!" she said in imploring tones. Mr. Copley paused.

"Not take it? Why not?" said he.

"It is not good for you. I know you ought not to take it, father. Please, please, don't!"

Dolly's eagerness and distress were too visible to be disregarded, by Mr. Copley at least. Her hand was trembling too. His still held the glass, but he looked uncertainly at Dolly, and asked her why it should not be good for him? Every gentleman in the land drank wine—that could afford it.

"But, father," said Dolly, "can you afford it?"

"Yes," said Mr. Copley. "Get up, Dolly. Here is the wine; it costs no more to drink it than to let it alone." And he swallowed the wine in the glass at a single draught.

"O father, don't take any more!" cried Dolly, seeing a preparatory movement of the hand towards the bottle. "O father! don't, don't! One glass is enough. Don't take any more to-day!"

"You talk like a goose, Dolly," said Mr. Copley, filling his glass. "I feel better already for that. It has done me good."

"You only think so. It is not doing you good. O father! if you love me, put the bottle away. Don't take a drop more!"

Dolly had turned pale in her agony of pleading; and her father, conscious in part, and ashamed with that secret consciousness, and taken by surprise at her action, looked at her and—did not drink.

"What's the matter with you, child?" he said, trying for an unconcerned manner. "Why should not I take wine, like everybody else in the world?"

"Father, it isn't good for people."

"I beg your pardon; it is very good for me. Indeed, I cannot be well without it."

"That's the very thing, father; people cannot do without it; and then it comes to be the master; and then—they cannot help themselves. Oh, do let it alone!"

"What's the matter, Dolly?" Mr. Copley repeated with an air of injury, which was at the same time miserably marred by embarrassment. "Do you think I cannot help myself? or how am I different from every other gentleman who takes wine?"

"Father, a great many of them are ruined by it."

"Well, I am not ruined by it yet."

"Father, how can you tell what might be? Father, I can't bear it!" Dolly could not indeed; she broke down. She sat on the floor and sobbed.

If Mr. Copley could have been angry with her; but he could not, she was so sweet in every pleading look and tone. If he could have dismissed her pleading as the whimsy of a fool; but he could not, for he knew it was wise truth. If he had been further gone in the habit which was growing upon him, to the point of brutality; but he was not yet; he was a man of affectionate nature. So he did not get angry, and though he wished Dolly at Brierley instead of in his room, he could not let her break her heart, seeing that she was there. He looked at her in uncomfortable silence for a minute or two; and then the bitterness of Dolly's sobs was more than he could stand. He rose and put the bottle away, locked it up, and came back to his place. Dolly's distress hindered her knowing what he had done.

"It's gone," Mr. Copley said in an injured tone, as of one oppressed and persecuted. "It is put away, Dolly; you need not sit there any longer."

Dolly looked up, rose from the floor, came into her father's arms, laid her two arms about his neck and her weary head upon his shoulder. It was a soft little head, and the action was like a child. Mr. Copley clasped her tenderly.

"Dolly," he said,—"my child—you are giving yourself a great deal more trouble than you need."

Dolly murmured, "Thank you, father!"

"You mustn't be superstitious."

Alas! Dolly had seen his face already altered by the indulgence of his new habits. Involuntarily her arms pressed him closer, and she only by an effort prevented a new outbreak of bitter sorrow. That was not best just now. She put a force upon herself; after a while looked up, and kissed her father; kissed him again and again.

"I declare!" said Mr. Copley, half delighted and half conscience-stricken, "you are a little witch, Dolly. Is this the way you are going to rule other folks beside me? Mr. St. Leger, for instance?"

"Mercy, father! no," said Dolly, recoiling.

"I don't believe he would be hard to manage. He's desperately in love with you, Dolly."

"Father, I don't want to manage. And I don't think Lawrence is in any danger. It isn't in him to be desperate about anything."

"So much the better, I think," said her father. "What if he should want to go with us to Venice?"

"Don't let him! We do not want him."

"He would be useful, I daresay. And I should have to take my secretary, Dolly."

"Take that other fellow, the one I saw in your office to-day."

"What, Babbage? He's a raw article, Dolly, very raw. I put him there to answer questions. The fellow was in a forlorn state here with nothing to do."

They calmed down after a while; and the rest of the evening was largely spent in considering plans and details of their projected movements. It was agreed that Dolly should rejoin Mrs. Jersey the next day, to be ready to return to Brierley with her; that then all preparations should be made for a speedy start to the Continent. Father and daughter talked themselves into ordinary composure, and when they had bid each other good night, Dolly went to rest with a feeling of some hopefulness.



CHAPTER XVII.

RUPERT.

Mrs. Jersey could not leave town the next day. Dolly had to wait. It was hard waiting. She half wished she had stayed that day also with her father; yet when she asked herself why?—she shuddered. To take care of him? to watch and keep guard over him? What use, for one day, when she could do it no longer? Mr. Copley must be left to himself; and a feeling of helplessness stole over her. From the momentary encouragement and hope, she fell back again to take a more comprehensive view of the subject; she saw that all was not gained yet, and it might be that nothing! And she could do no more, except pray. Poor Dolly did that; but the strain of fear, the horror of shame, the grief of hurt affection, began to make her very sore. She was not getting accustomed to her burden; it was growing more insupportably galling; the only hope for the whole family lay in getting together and remaining together, and in this journey taking Mr. Copley away from his haunts and his tempters. Yet Dolly reflected with trembling that the temptation, both temptations, would meet them on their way; if a man desired to drink or to play, he would never be at a loss for the opportunity or the companions. Dolly wrung her hands and prayed again.

However, something was gained; and Dolly on her return reported to her mother that they were to set off for the Continent in a few days. She brought down money, moreover, to pay off the servants; and with a heart so far lightened, went bravely at the preparations to be made.

"And will your father go with us to Venice?"

"Of course, mother. We cannot go without him."

"What if Venice shouldn't agree with me?"

"Oh, then we'll go on further. I think Naples would agree with you. There is a very nice house at Sorrento—nice people—where Lady Brierley spent a summer; and Mrs. Jersey has given me the address. Perhaps we'll go there."

"But if Lady Brierley was there, I guess it's an expensive place."

"No, Mrs. Jersey says not. You must have what you want anyhow, mother dear."

"I always used," said poor Mrs. Copley; "but of late I have been obliged to sing another tune."

"Go back to the old tune, then, dear. If father hasn't got the money, I'll find some way of raising it myself. I mean you shall go to Sorrento. Mrs. Jersey says it's just charming there."

"I wonder what she knows about it! A housekeeper! Queer person to tell you and me where to go."

"Why, a finger-post can do that, mother. Mrs. Jersey knows a great deal besides, about a great many things."

"Well!" Mrs. Copley said again with another sigh—"it is new times to me altogether. And I wish the old times would come back!"

"Perhaps they will, mother. When once we get hold of father again, we must try to charm him into staying with us."

And it seemed to Dolly that they might do so much. The spirit of seventeen is not easily kept down; and with the stir of actually getting ready for the journey, she felt her hope and courage moving also. A change at any rate was before her; and Dolly had a faint, far-off thought of possibly working upon her father to induce him at the close of their Italian journey to take ship for home.

So she bustled about from morning till night; packed what was to go and what was to be left; grew very cheery over her work, and cheered and amused her mother. September was on its way now; it was time to be off; and Dolly wrote to her father to tell him she was ready.

A few days later, Dolly was in the porch resting and eating a fine pear, which came out of a basket Mrs. Jersey had sent. It was afternoon, sunny and hazy, the air fragrant from the woods, the silence now and then emphasised by a shot somewhere in the distance. Dolly was happy and hopeful; the weather was most lovely, the pear was excellent; she was having a pleasant half hour of musing and anticipation. Somebody came on foot along the road, swung open the small lattice gate, and advanced up the path towards her.

Who was it? Not Mr. St. Leger, which had been Dolly's first momentary fear. No, this was a different creature. A young man, but how unlike that other. St. Leger was trim-built, smooth, regular, comely; this young fellow was lank, long-limbed, none of his joints played symmetrically with the others; and the face, though shrewd enough and good-natured, had no remote pretensions to beauty. His dress had not been cut by the sort of tailor that worked for the St. Legers; his gait, instead of the firm, compact, confident movement which Dolly was accustomed to see, had a swinging stride, which indeed did not lack a kind of confidence; the kind that makes no doubt of getting over the ground, and cares little for obstacles. As Dolly looked, she thought she had seen him before. But it was very odd, nevertheless, the sort of well-pleased smile his face wore. He took off his hat when he got to the foot of the steps, and stood there looking up at Dolly in the porch.

"You don't recollect me, I guess," said he.

"No," said Dolly gravely.

"I am Rupert Babbage. And that don't make you much wiser, does it?"

"No," said Dolly. "Not at all."

"Likely. But Mr. Copley has sent me down."

"Has he?"

"I recollect you first-rate," the stranger went on, feeling in his coat pocket for something and producing therefrom a letter. "Don't you know the day you came to your father's office?" And mounting a step or two, without further preface he handed the letter to Dolly. Dolly saw her father's handwriting, her own name on the cover, and put a stop to the wonder which was creeping over her, by breaking the seal. While she read the letter the young man's eyes read her face.



"DEAR DOLLY,—

"I can't get quit of this confounded Babel yet—and you must want somebody badly. So I send Rupert down. He'll do everything you want, better in fact than I could, for he is young and spry, and as good a boy as lives. He will see to everything, and you can get off as soon as you like. I think he had better go along all the way; his mother wit is worth a dozen stupid couriers, even though he don't know quite so much about routes and hotels; he will soon pick all that up. Will you want to stay more than a night in town? For that night my landlady can take you in; and if you let me know when you will be ready I will have your passage taken in the packet.

"Hurried, as always, dear Dolly, with my love to your mother,

"F. C. COPLEY,

"CONSUL'S OFFICE LONDON,

"Sept. 9, 182-."



Poor Dolly read this note over and over, having thrown away the remainder of her sweet pear as belonging only to a time of easy pleasure-taking which was past. Was her father not coming to Brierley then? she must get off without him? Why? And "your passage"! why not "our" passage? Dolly felt the ground giving way under her feet. No, her father could not be coming to Brierley, or he would not have sent this young fellow. And all things in the world were hovering in uncertainty; nothing sure even to hope.

The eyes that watched her saw the face change, the fair, bright, young face; saw her colour pale, and the lovely lines of the lips droop for a moment to an expression of great sadness. The eyelids drooped too, and he was sure there was a glistening under them.

"Did Mr. Copley say why he could not come?" she asked at length, lifting her head.

"He did not. I am very sorry!" said Rupert involuntarily. "I guess he could not get his business fixed. And he said you were in a hurry."

But not without him! thought Dolly. What was the whole movement for, if he were to be left out of it? What should she do? But she must not let the tears come. That would do nobody any good, not even herself. She brushed away the undue moisture, and raised her head.

"Did Mr. Copley tell you who I am?" the young man asked. "I guess he didn't forget that."

"No. Yes!" said Dolly, unable to help smiling at the question and the simple earnestness of the questioner's face. "He told me your name."

"Left you to find out the rest?" said he. "Well, what can I do first? That's what for I'm come."

"I don't think there is anything to do," said Dolly.

"All ready?"

"Yes. Pretty much. All except finishing."

"Lots o' baggage?"

"No, not so very much. We did not bring a great deal down here."

"Then it'll go by the coach easy enough. How will it get to the coach?"

"I don't know. We must have a waggon from the village, I suppose, or from some farmhouse."

"When do you want to go? and I'll soon fix that."

Dolly reflected and said, "The day after to-morrow."

"All right."

He was setting forth immediately, with a world of energy in his gait. Dolly called after him.

"To-morrow will be time enough for the waggon, Mr. Babbage."

"There'll be something else for to-morrow," he answered without pausing.

"Tea'll be ready at six," said Dolly, raising her voice a little.

"All right!" said he, and sped away.

Dolly looked after him, so full of vexation that she did not know what to do. Not her father, and in his place this boy! This boy to go with them on the journey; to be one of the party; to be always on hand; for he could not be relegated to the place of a servant or a courier. And Dolly wanted her father, and was sure that the expense of a fourth person might have been spared. The worst fear of all she would not look at; it was possible that they were still to be three, and her father, the fourth, left out. However, for the present the matter in hand was action; she must tell her mother about this new arrival before she met him at supper. Dolly went in.

"Your father not coming?" said Mrs. Copley when she had heard Dolly's report. "Then we have nothing to wait for, and we can get right off. I do want to see your father out of that miserable office once!"

"Well, he promised me, mother," said Dolly, sighing.

"Can we go to-morrow?"

"No, mother; there are too many last things to do. Next day we will."

"Why can't we go and leave this young man to finish up after us?"

"He could not do it, mother; and we must let father know, besides."

Rupert came back in due time and was presented to Mrs. Copley; but Mrs. Copley did not admire his looks, and the supper-table party was very silent. The silence became unbearable to the new-comer; and though he was not without a certain shyness in Dolly's presence, it became at last easier to speak than to go on eating and not speaking.

"Plenty of shootin' round about here, I s'pose," he remarked. "I heard the guns going."

"The preserves of Brierley are very full of game," Dolly answered; "and there are some friends of Lord Brierley staying at the house."

"I engaged a waggon," Rupert went on. "It'll be here at one, sharp."

"I ought to have sent a word to the post-office, for father, when you went to the village; but I did not think till it was too late."

"I did that," said Rupert.

"Sent a word to father?"

"All right. Told him you'd be up on Wednesday."

"Oh, thank you. That was very thoughtful."

"You're from America," said Mrs. Copley.

"Should think I was!"

"Whereabouts? where from, I mean?"

"About two miles from your place—Ortonville is the spot. My native."

"What made you come over here?"

"Well, I s'pose it would be as true as anything to say, Mr. Copley made me come."

"What for?"

"Well, I guess it was kindness. Most likely."

"Kindness!" echoed Mrs. Copley. "Poor kindness, I call it, to take a man, or a boy, or any one else, away from his natural home. Haven't you found it so? Don't you wish you were back there again?"

"Well," said Rupert with a little slowness, and a twinkle in his eye at the same time,—"I just don't; if I'm to tell the truth."

"It is incomprehensible to me!" returned the lady. "Why, what do you find here, that you would not have had at home?"

"England, for one thing," said the young man with a smile.

"England! Of course you would not have had England at home; but isn't America better?"

"I think it is."

"Then what do you gain by exchanging one for the other?" said Mrs. Copley with heat.

"That exchange ain't made yet. I calculate to go back, when I have got all I want on this side."

"And what do you want? Money, I suppose. Everything is for money, with everybody. Country, and family, and the ease of life, and the pleasure of being together—nothing matters, if only one may get money! I don't know but savages have the best of it. At least they don't live for money."

Mrs. Copley forgot at the moment that she was wishing her daughter to marry for money.

"I counsel you, young man," she began again. "Money won't buy everything."

He laughed good-humouredly. "Can't buy much without it," he said, with that shrewd twinkle in his eye.

"And what can Mr. Copley do for you, I should like to know?" she went on impatiently.

"He's put me in a likely way," said Rupert. "I am very much beholden to Mr. Copley. But the best thing he has done for me is this—by a long jump."

"This? What?"

"Letting me go along this journey. I do not think money is the very best of all things," the young man said with some spirit.

"Letting you—— Do you mean that you are going to Venice in our party?"

"If it is Venice you are going to."

Silence fell. Mrs. Copley pondered the news in some consternation. To Dolly it was not news, and she did not mean it should be fact, if she could help it.

"Perhaps you have business in Venice?" Mrs. Copley at length ventured.

"I hope it'll turn out so," said Rupert. "Mr. Copley said I might have the pleasure of taking care of you. I should enjoy that, I guess, more than making money."

"Good gracious!" was all the speech Mrs. Copley was capable of. She sat and looked at the young man. So, furtively, did Dolly. He was enjoying his supper; yes, and the prospect too; for a slight flush had risen to his face. It was not a symmetrical face, but honesty was written in every line of it.

"You've got your plans fixed?" Rupert next inquired. "Know just which way you are going? Be sure you are right, and then go ahead, you know."

"We take the boat to Rotterdam," said Dolly.

"Which way, then? Mr. Copley told me so much."

"I don't know," said Mrs. Copley. "If I could once get hold of Mr. Copley we could soon settle it."

"What points do you want to make?"

"Points? I don't want to make any points. I don't know what you mean."

"I mean, where do you want to go in special, between here and Venice? or are there no places you care about?"

"Places? Oh!—Well, yes, there are. I should like to see the place where the battle of Waterloo was fought."

"Mother, that would be out of our way," said Dolly.

"Which is our way?" said Mrs. Copley. "I thought we had not fixed it."

"You don't go up the Rhine, then?" said Rupert.

"I'm going nowhere by boat except where I can't help myself. I like to feel land under me. No, we are not going up the Rhine. I can see mountains enough in America, and rivers enough too."

Rupert had finished his supper, and took up an atlas he saw lying near.

"Rotterdam," he said, opening at the map of Central Europe,—"that is our one fixed point, that and Venice. Now, how to get from the one to the other."

Mrs. Copley changed her seat to come nearer the map; and an animated discussion followed, which kept her interested and happy the whole of the evening. Dolly saw it and was thankful. It was more satisfactory than the former consultation with St. Leger, who treated the subject from quite too high and lordly a point of view; referring to the best hotels and assuming the easiest ways of doing things; flinging money about him, in imagination, as Mrs. Copley said, as if it were coming out of a purse with no bottom to it; which to be sure might be very true so far as he was concerned, but much discomposed the poor woman who knew that on her part such pleasant freehandedness was not to be thought of. Rupert Babbage evidently did not think of it. He considered economy. Besides, he was not so distractingly au fait in everything; Mrs. Copley could bear a part in the conversation. So she and Rupert meandered over the map, talked endlessly, took a vast deal of pleasure in the exercise, and grew quite accustomed to each other; while Dolly sat by, glad and yet chafing. Rupert certainly was a comfort, for the hour; but she wished he had never been thought of, nevertheless.

But he was a comfort next day again. Cheery and busy and efficient, he managed people, sent the luggage off, helped and waited upon Mrs. Copley, and kept her quiet with his talk, up to the time when the third day they took their places in the coach.

"Really, Mr. Babbage, you are a very handy young man!" Mrs. Copley once had uttered her admiration; and Rupert laughed.

"I shouldn't think much of myself," he said, "if I couldn't do as much as that. You see, I consider that I'm promoted."

Dolly made the journey up to town in a state between relief and disgust. Rupert did take a world of trouble off her hands; but she said to herself that she did not want it taken off. And she certainly did not want this long-legged fellow attending upon them everywhere. It was better to have him than St. Leger; that was all you could say.

The days in London were few and busy. Mr. Copley during this interval was very affectionate, very kind and attentive; in fact, so attentive to supplying or providing against every possible want that he found little time to be with his family. He and Rupert were perpetually flying out and in, ordering this and searching for that; a sort of joyous bustle seemed to be the order of the day; for he carried it on gleefully.

"Why, Mr. Copley," his wife said, when he brought her an elegant little leather case for holding the tinctures and medicines in which she indulged, "I thought we must economise so hard? I thought you had no money now-a-days? How is this, and what does it mean? this case must have cost a pound."

"You are worth more than a pound, my dear," Mr. Copley said with a sort of semi-earnestness.

"But I thought you were so poor all of a sudden?"

"We are going to turn a new leaf, and live frugally; so you see, on the strength of that, we can afford to be extravagant now and then."

"That seems to me a very doubtful way, Mr. Copley," said his wife, shaking her head.

"Don't be doubtful, my dear. Whatever else you do, go straight to your mark, and don't be doubtful. Humming and hawing never get on with anything. Care killed a cat, my dear."

"It has almost killed me," said poor Mrs. Copley. "Are we out of need of care, Frank?"

"You are. I'll take all the care for the family. My dear, we are going in for play, and Venice."

Dolly heard this, and felt a good deal cheered. What was her consternation, then, when the day of sailing came, and at the last minute, on board the packet, her father declared he must wait; he could not leave London yet for a week or two, but he could not let them be delayed; he would let St. Leger go to look after them, and he would catch them up before they got to Venice. All this was said in a breath, in a rush and hurry, at the moment of taking leave; the luggage was on board, Rupert was looking after it, Mr. St. Leger's elegant figure was just stepping across the gangway; and Mr. Copley kissed and shook hands and was off, with a word to Lawrence as he passed, before Mrs. Copley or Dolly could throw in more than an exclamation of dismay to stop him. Stop him! one might as well stop a gust of wind. Dolly saw he had planned it all; reckoned the minutes, got them off on purpose without himself, and with Mr. St. Leger. And here was Mr. St. Leger to be spoken to; coming up with his assured step and his handsome, indolent blue eyes, to address her mother. St. Leger was a nice fellow; he was neither a fool nor a coxcomb; but the sight of him was very disagreeable to Dolly just then. She turned away, as full of vexation as she could hold, and went to Rupert's side, who was looking after the luggage.

"Do you want to see your berth right away?" he asked her.

"My berth?" said Dolly.

"Well, yes; your cabin—state-room—whatever you call it—where you are to sleep. You know which it is; do you know where it is? I always like to get such things straightened out, first thing. Would you like to see it?"

"Oh yes, please," said Dolly; and grasping one of the hand-bags she turned away gladly from the deck. Anything for a little respite and solitude, from Mr. St. Leger. Rupert found the place, stowed bags and wraps and rugs conveniently away, and made Dolly as much at home as she could be at five minutes' notice.

"How long will the passage take?" she asked.

"Well, if I knew what the weather would be, I would tell you. Shall you be sick?"

"I don't know," said Dolly. "I believe I wish I may. Mr. Babbage, are you a Christian?"

"Well, I ain't a heathen, anyhow," said he, laughing a little.

"No, but that isn't what I mean. Of course you are not a heathen. But I mean—do you serve the Lord Jesus, and do you love Him?"

Dolly had it not in mind to make a confidant of her new squire; but in the terrible confusion and trouble of her spirits she grasped at any possible help or stay. The excitement of the minute lifted her quite out of ordinary considerations; if Rupert was a Christian, he might be a stand-by to her, and anyhow would understand her. So she asked. But he looked at her and shook his head. The thought crossed him that he was her servant, and her service was all that he was distinctly pledged to in his own mind. He shook his head.

"Then what do you do when you are in trouble?" she asked.

"Never been there," said Rupert. "Always find some way out, when I get into a fix. Why, are you in trouble?" he asked sympathetically.

"Oh," cried Dolly, "I am in trouble to death, because father hasn't come with us!" She could bear it no longer; even seventeen years old gives out sometimes; she burst into tears and sat down on a box and sobbed. All her hopes dashed to pieces; all her prospects dark and confused; nothing but disappointment and perplexity before her. What should she do with her mother, she alone? What should she do with Mr. St. Leger? a still more vexatious question. And what would become of her father, left to himself, and at what possible time in the future might she hope that he would break away from his ties and temptations and come to rejoin his family? Dolly sobbed in sorrow and bitterness of heart. Rupert Babbage stood and looked on wofully; and then delicately went out and closed the door.

Dolly's tears did her good. I think it was a help to her too, to know that she had so efficient and faithful a servant in the despised Rupert Babbage. At any rate, after a half hour or so, she made her appearance on deck and met Mr. St. Leger with a calm apparent unconcern, which showed her again equal to the occasion. Circumstances were making a woman of Dolly fast.

Mr. St. Leger's talk had in the meantime quieted Mrs. Copley. He assured her that her husband would soon come after and catch up with them. Now he turned his attention to Dolly and Rupert.

"Who is that fellow?" he asked Dolly, when Rupert had left them for a minute.

"He is a young man in my father's office. Did you never see him there?"

"But what is he doing here? We do not want him, it strikes me."

"He is very useful, and able."

"Well—aw—but cannot he keep his good qualities to their proper sphere? He is not an addition of much value to our society."

"Take care, Mr. St. Leger! He is an American; he cannot be set down with the servants."

"Why not, if his education and habits make that his place?"

"Oh, but they do not."

"It seems to me they do, if you will pardon me. This fellow has never been in any gentleman's society, except your father's."

"He will be a gentleman himself, in all essentials, one day, Mr. St. Leger. There is the difference. The capability is in him, and the ambition, and the independent and generous feeling. The foundations are all there."

"I'll confess the house when I see it."

"Ay, but you must in the meantime do nothing to hinder its building."

"Why must not I?" said Lawrence, laughing. "It is not my part to lay hold on a trowel and be a social mason. Still less is it yours."

"Oh, there you are wrong. I think it is everybody's part."

"Do you? But fancy, what a dreadful thing life would be in that way. Perpetual rubbish and confusion. And pardon me—can you pardon me?—that is my idea of America."

"I do not think it is a just one," said Dolly, as Rupert now drew near again.

"Is there not perpetual building going on there, of this kind as well as of the more usual?"

"Perhaps. I was very young when I left home. But what then?"

"Nothing. I have a preference for order and quiet, and things in their places."

"At that rate, you know," said Dolly, "nothing would ever have been built anywhere. I grant you, the order and quiet are pleasant when your own house is all that you desire. But don't you want to see your neighbour's house come up?"

"No," said Lawrence, laughing. "I have a better prospect from my windows if he remains as he is."



CHAPTER XVIII.

A SQUARE PARTY.

The passage was stormy and long. Mrs. Copley and her daughter were both soon fully occupied with attending to their own sensations; and neither Rupert nor Lawrence had any more power to annoy them till they reached quiet water again. But even in the depths of sea misery, Dolly's deeper distress broke forth. "My father! my father! What shall I do to save my father!" she was crying in her heart; all the while with a sense that every hour was bringing her further from him and from the chance of saving him.

Still, Dolly was seventeen; and at seventeen one cannot be always cast down; and when rough water and troubled skies, and ship noises and smells, were all left behind, as it seemed, in the German ocean, and Dolly found herself one morning in the hotel at Rotterdam, eating a very good breakfast, her spirits sprang up in spite of herself. The retiring wave of bodily misery carried with it for the moment all other. The sun was shining again; and after breakfast they stood together at one of the windows looking out upon the new world they had come to. Their hotel faced the quay: they saw before them an extent of water glittering in the sunshine, steamers waiting for their time of sailing, small craft flying about in all directions, and activity, bustle, and business filling every nook and corner of the scene. Dolly's heart leaped up; the stir was very inspiriting; and how lovely the sunshine was, and how pleasant the novelty! And then, to think that she had but touched the shore of novelty; that all Central Europe was behind her as she stood looking out on the quay!—Her father would surely catch them up somewhere, and then all would go well. She was silent, in the full joy of seeing.

"What's the next move?" said Lawrence. He did not care for Rotterdam quay. He had been looking at Dolly, charmed with the delicate, fresh picture she made. The line of frank pleasure on her lips, it was as frank as a child's, and the eyes were as absorbed; and yet they were grave, womanly eyes, he knew, not easy to cheat, with all their simplicity. The mingling of qualities was delicious, and not to be found elsewhere in all his sphere of experience. Even her little hands were full of character, with a certain precision of action and calm of repose which gave to all their movements a certain thorough-bred grace, which Lawrence could recognise though he could not analyse. Then the little head with its masses of wavy hair was so lovely, and the slim figure so full of that same certainty of action and grace of rest which he admired; there was nothing undecided about Dolly, and yet there was nothing done by rule. That again was a combination he did not know elsewhere. Her dress—he considered that too. It was the simplest of travelling dresses, with nothing to mark it, or draw attention, or make it unfit for its special use—in perfectly good taste. How did she know? thought Lawrence; for he knew as well as I do that she had not learned it of her mother. There was nothing marked about Mrs. Copley's appearance; nevertheless she lacked that harmony of simple good taste which was all over Dolly. Lawrence looked, until he saw that Rupert was looking too; and then he thought it was time to break up the exercise. "What is the next move?" he said.

"We have not settled that," said Dolly. "We could think of nothing on board ship. Mother, dear, now we are here, which way shall we go?"

"I don't know anything about ways," said Mrs. Copley. "Not here in this strange country."

"Then put it another way," said Lawrence. "Where do you want to go?"

"Why, to Venice," said Mrs. Copley, looking at him.

"Of course; but you want to see something by the way?"

"I left all that to Mr. Copley," said she, half whimpering. "When do you think he will come, Mr. St. Leger? I depended on my husband."

"He will come soon," said Lawrence. "But I would not recommend staying in Rotterdam to wait for him. What do you say to our asking him to meet us in Wiesbaden? To be sure, the season is over."

"Wiesbaden?" said Mrs. Copley.

"Wiesbaden?" cried Dolly. "Oh no, Mr. St. Leger! Not there, nor in any such place!"

"The season is over, Miss Dolly."

"I don't want to go to Wiesbaden. Mother, you wanted to see something—what was it?"

"Waterloo"—— Mrs. Copley began.

"That would take us out of the way of everything—down into Belgium—and you would not see anything when you got there, Mrs. Copley. Only some fields; there is nothing left of the battle."

"But if I saw the fields, I could imagine the battle," said Mrs. Copley.

"Could you? Let us imagine something pleasanter. You don't want to go up the Rhine?"

"I don't want to go anywhere in a boat, Mr. St. Leger. I am going to keep on land, now I've got there. But I was thinking.—Somebody told me of some wonderful painted glass, somewhere near Rotterdam, and told me not to miss seeing it. Where is it?"

"I know," said Dolly; "the place was Gonda; in the cathedral. But where is Gonda?"

"Nine miles off," said Rupert.

"Then that's where I want to go," said Mrs. Copley. "I have heard all my life of painted glass; now I should like to see what it amounts to."

"Perhaps that would take us out of our way too, mother."

"I thought we just said we had no way settled," said Mrs. Copley in an irritated tone. "What's the use of being here, if we can't see anything now we are here? Nine miles isn't much, anyhow."

"We will go there, dear," said Dolly. "We can go so far and come back to this place, if necessary."

"And there is another thing I want to see, now we are here," Mrs. Copley went on. "I want to go to Dresden."

"Dresden!" cried St. Leger. "What's at Dresden?"

"A great many things, I suppose; but what I want to see is the Green vaults and the picture gallery."

"Mrs. Copley," said Lawrence quietly, "there are galleries of pictures everywhere. We shall find them at every step—more than you will want to look at, by a hundred fold."

"But we shall not find Green vaults, shall we? And you will not tell me that the Dresden madonna is anywhere but at Dresden?"

"I did not know you cared so much about pictures, mother," Dolly ventured.

"I don't!" said Mrs. Copley,—"not about the pictures; but I don't like to be here and not see what there is to see. I like to say I have seen it. It would be absurd to be here and not see things. Your father told me to go just where I wanted to; and if I don't go to Waterloo, I want to see Dresden."

"And from there?" said Lawrence.

"I don't know. I suppose we can find our way from there to Venice somehow."

"But do you not include Cologne Cathedral in the things you wish to see?"

"Cologne? I don't know about cathedrals. We are going to see one now, aren't we? Isn't one as good as another?"

"To pray in, I have no doubt," said Lawrence; "but hardly to look at."

"Well, you don't think churches ought to be built to look at, do you? I think that is wicked. Churches are meant for something."

"You would not object to looking at them when they are built? would you? Here we are now, going to see Gonda Cathedral."

"No, I am not," said Mrs. Copley. "I am going to see the glass windows. We shall not see them to-day if we stand here talking."

Lawrence ordered a carriage, and the party set out. He wished devoutly that it had numbered five instead of four, so that Rupert could have been sent outside. But the carnage held them all comfortably.

Dolly was a little uneasy at the travelling problem before her; however, no uneasiness could stand long against the charm of that morning's drive. The blessed familiar sun shone on a world so very different from all the world she had ever known before. On every hand were flower gardens; on both sides of the way; and in the midst of the flower gardens stood pleasant-looking country houses; while the road was bordered with narrow canals, over which drawbridges of extravagant size led to the houses. It was a rich and quaint and pretty landscape under the September sun; and Dolly felt all concern and annoyance melting away from her. She saw that her mother too was amused and delighted. Surely things would come out right by and by.

The town interested three of the party in a high degree.

"Well!" said Mrs. Copley, "haven't they learned here yet to turn the front of their houses to the street?"

"Perhaps they never will," said Lawrence. "Why should they?"

"Because things ought to be right, if it is only the fronts of houses," said the lady.

"I wouldn't mind which way they looked, if they would only hold up straight," said Rupert. "What ails the town?"

"Bad soil, most likely," returned Lawrence. "The foundations of Holland are moral, not physical."

"What do you mean by that?" said Mrs. Copley. "I am sure they have plenty of money. Is this the cathedral we are coming to?"

"St. Jans Kirk ."

"Well, if that's all!—It isn't handsome a bit!"

"It's real homely, that's a fact," said Rupert.

"You came to see the glass windows," said Lawrence. "Let us go in, and then pass judgment."

They went in, and then a low exclamation from Rupert was all that was heard. The ladies were absolutely mute before the blaze of beauty that met them.

"Well!" said Rupert after a pause of deep silence—"now I know what folks mean when they say something 'beats the Dutch.' That beats all I ever saw!—hollow."

"But how delicious!" exclaimed Dolly. "The work is so delicate. And oh, the colours! Mother, do you see that purple? Who is the person represented there, Mr. St. Leger?"

"That is Philip the Second. And it is not likely, I may remark, that any Dutchman painted it. That broken window was given to the church by Philip."

"Who did paint it, then?"

"I cannot say, really."

"What a pity it is broken!"

"But the others are mostly in very good keeping. Come on—here is the Duke of Alva."

"If I were a Dutch woman, I would break that," said Dolly.

"No, you wouldn't. Consider—he serves as an adornment of the city here. Breaking his effigy would not be breaking him, Miss Dolly."

"It must be a very strange thing to live in an old country," said Dolly. "I mean, if you belong to it. Just look at these windows!—How old is the work itself, Mr. St. Leger?"

"I am not wise in such things;—I should say it must date from the best period of the art. I believe it is said so."

"And when was that?"

"Really, I don't know; a good while ago, Miss Dolly."

"Philip II. came to reign about the middle of the sixteenth century," Rupert remarked.

"Exactly," St. Leger said, looking annoyed.

"Well, sir," Rupert went on, "I would like to ask you one thing—can't they paint as good a glass window now as they could then?"

"They may paint a better glass window, for aught I know," said Lawrence; "but the painting will not be so good."

"That's curious," said Rupert. "I thought things went for'ard, and not back, in the world. Why shouldn't they paint as well now as ever?"

Nobody spoke.

"Why should they not, Mr. St. Leger?" Dolly repeated.

"I don't know, I'm sure. Mrs. Copley, I'm afraid you are fatiguing yourself."

Mrs. Copley yielded to this gentle suggestion; and long, long before Dolly was ready to go, the party left the church to repair to a hotel, and have some refreshment. They were all in high spirits by this time.

"Is it settled where we are to go next?" Mr. St. Leger inquired as they sat at table.

"I don't care where next," said Mrs. Copley; "but only I want to come out at Dresden."

"But Dresden, mother"—said Dolly gently, "it is not in our way to Venice." She interpreted the expression she saw in Lawrence's face.

"Dolly, the Green vaults are in Dresden. I am not going to be so near and not see them. Wasn't I right about the painted windows? I never saw anything so beautiful in my life, nor you didn't. I wouldn't have missed it for anything. Now you'll see if I ain't right about the Green vaults."

"What do you expect to find in them?" Lawrence asked. "I do not remember anything about such a mysterious place."

"I have heard about it in London," Mrs. Copley answered. "Somebody who had been there told me about it, and I made up my mind I'd see it if ever I got a chance. It is like having Aladdin's lamp and going down into his vault—only you can't take away what you've a mind to; that's the only difference."

"But what is there? Aladdin's grotto was full of precious stones, if I remember."

"And so are these," cried Mrs. Copley. "There is an egg with a hen in it."

At this there was a general laugh.

"It's a fact," said Mrs. Copley. "And in the hen, or under it—in the hen, I believe—there is a crown of gold and diamonds and pearls, with a motto. Oh, it's wonderful. It's better than the Arabian Nights, if it's true."

"Except that we cannot take the egg away with us," said Lawrence. "However—pray, do they let in the indiscriminate public to see these wonders?"

"I don't know. I suppose there are ways to get in, or nobody would have been in."

"No doubt; the problem is, to find the way. Influence may be necessary, possibly."

"I daresay Mr. Copley can manage it. Do write and ask him what we must do, Dolly; and ask him to send us letters, or leave, or whatever we must have. Write to-day, will you? and ask him to send it right away. Of course there are ways to do things."

"May I make a suggestion?" said Lawrence. "If we are to go on to Dresden, why should we return to Rotterdam? We might send back to the hotel for our luggage, and meanwhile you can rest here. And then we can go on to Utrecht early to-morrow; or this evening, if you like. It would save time."

This plan met approval. Rupert volunteered to go back and bring Mrs. Copley's belongings safely to Gonda.

"And while you are about it, bring mine too, my good fellow, will you?" said St. Leger as Rupert was about to go. He spoke somewhat superciliously. But the other answered with cool good humour,

"All right. I'll do that, on the understanding that you'll do as much for me next time." And he went.

"Confound him!" said Lawrence; while Dolly smiled.

"Hush!" she said. "I am sure that is a fair bargain."

"Where did Mr. Copley pick up such a green hand?"

"Did you never see him at the office?"

"What office?"

"The Consul's office, in London. You have been there enough."

"Oh, ah—the Consul's office," said Lawrence. "True, if he was there I must have seen him. But what do we want of him here?"

"He is useful to you just now," said Dolly.

But afterwards she took up the question again and, what Lawrence did not dream of, included his name in it. Why was either of these young men there? This time of waiting at the hotel gave Dolly a chance to think; and while she sat at the window and watched the strange figures and novel sights in the street, her mind began to go over more questions than one. She felt in a sort lost without her father. Here were she and her mother taking a journey through Europe in the care of these two young men. What were they there for? Rupert certainly for her pleasure and service, she knew; Lawrence, she was equally sure, for his own. How should she manage them? for Lawrence must not be encouraged, while at the same time he could not be sent away. At least, not yet. Careful, and cool, and womanly, she must be; and that was not so very difficult, for poor Dolly felt as if glad childish days were past for her.

Another question was, how she should get the most good of her journey, and how she could help Rupert, who, she could see, was on the watch to improve himself. Dolly had a sympathy for him. She resolved that she would study up every subject that presented itself, and set Rupert upon doing the same. St. Leger might take care of himself. Yet Dolly's conscience would not let him go so. No; one can be nobody's travelling companion for days or weeks, without having duties to fulfil towards him; but Dolly thought the duties were very difficult in this her particular case. If her father would but come! And therewith Dolly sat down and wrote him the tenderest, lovingest of letters, telling him about their journey, and the glass windows; and begging him to meet them in Dresden or before, so that they might see the fabulous Green vaults together. In any case, she begged him to make such provision that Mrs. Copley might not be disappointed of seeing them. All Dolly's eloquence and some tears were poured out upon that sheet of paper; and as she sealed it up she felt again that she was surely growing to be a woman; the days of her childhood were gone.

Not so far off, however, but that Dolly's spirits sprang up again after the letter was despatched, and were able to take exquisite pleasure in everything the further journey offered. Even the unattractive was novel, and what was not unattractive was so charming. She admired the quaint, clean, bright, fanciful Dutch towns; the abundance of flowers still to be seen abroad; the smiling country places surrounding the towns; the strange carvings and devices on the houses; the crooked streets.

"You are the first person I ever saw," Lawrence said admiringly, "who found beauty in crooked streets."

"Do you like straight ones?" said Dolly.

"Certainly. Why not?"

"You look from end to end; you see all there is at once; walk and walk as you may, there is no change, but the same wearisome lines of houses. Now when streets are not straight, but have windings and turnings, you are always coming to something new."

"I suppose you like them to be up hill and down too?"

"Oh, very much!"

"You do not find that in Holland."

"No, but in Boston."

"Ah, indeed!" said Lawrence.

"I wonder," Dolly went on, "what makes one nation so different from another. You are on an island; but here there is only a line between Holland and Germany, and the people are not alike."

"Comes from what they eat," said Lawrence.

"Their food?" said Dolly.

"Yes. The Scotchman lives upon porridge, the Englishman on beef and porter, the German on sausages and beer."

"The French?"

"Oh, on soup and salad and sour wine."

"And Italians?"

"On grapes and olives."

"That will do to talk about," said Dolly; "but it does not touch the question."

"Not touch the question! I beg your pardon—but it does touch it most essentially. Do you think it makes no difference to a man what sort of a dinner he eats?"

"A great difference to some men; but does it make much difference in him?"

"Yes," said Rupert; and "Yes!" said Lawrence, with a unanimity which made Dolly smile. "I can tell you," the latter went on, "a man is one thing or another for the day, according to whether he has had a good breakfast or a bad one."

"I understand. That's temper."

"It is not temper at all. It is physical condition."

"It's feeling put to rights, I think," said Rupert.

"I suppose all these people are suited, in their several ways," said Dolly. "Will mother like Venice, Mr. St. Leger, when we get there? What is it like?"

"Like a city afloat. You will like it, for the strangeness and the beautiful things you will find there. I can't say about Mrs. Copley, I'm sure."

"What do they drink there?" said Rupert. "Water?"

"Well, not exactly. You can judge for yourself, my good fellow."

"But that is Italy," said Dolly. "I suppose there is no beer or porter?"

"Well, you can find it, of course, if you want it; there are people enough coming and going that do want it; but in Venice you can have pure wine, and at a reasonable price, too."

"At hotels, of course," said Dolly faintly.

"Of course, at some of them. But I was not thinking of hotels."

"Of what, then?"

"Wine-shops.''

"Wine-shops! Not for people who only want a glass, or two glasses?"

"Just for them. A glass or two, or half a dozen."

"Restaurants, you mean?"

"No, I do not mean restaurants. They are just wine-shops; sell nothing but wine. Odd little places. There's no show; there's no set out; there are just the casks from which the wine is drawn, and the glasses-mugs, I should say; queer things; pints and quarts, and so on. Nothing else is there, but the customers and the people who serve you."

"And people go into such places to drink wine? merely to drink, without eating anything?"

"They can eat, if they like. There are street venders, that watch the custom and come in immediately after any one enters; they bring fruit and confections and trifles."

"You do not mean that gentlemen go to these places, Mr. St. Leger?"

"Certainly. The wine is pure, and sold at a reasonable rate. Gentlemen go, of course—if they know where to go."

Dolly's heart sank. In Venice this!—where she had hoped to have her father with her safe. She had known there was wine enough to be had in hotels; but that, she knew too, costs money, if people will have it good; and Mr. Copley liked no other. But cheap wine-shops, "if you know where to go,"—therefore retired and comparatively private places,—were those to be found in Venice, the goal of her hopes? Dolly's cheeks grew perceptibly pale.

"What is the matter, Miss Dolly?" Lawrence asked, watching her. But Dolly could not answer; and she thought he knew, besides.

"There is no harm in pure wine," he went on.

Dolly flashed a look at him upon that, a most involuntary, innocent look; yet one which he would have worked half a day for if it could have been obtained so. It was eloquent, it was brilliant, it was tender; it carried a fiery appeal against the truth of his words, and at the same time a most moving deprecation of his acting in consonance with them. She dared not speak plainer, and she could not have spoken plainer, if she had talked for an hour. Lawrence would have urged further his view of the subject, but that look stopped him. Indeed, the beauty of it put for the moment the occasion of it out of his head.

Thanks to Rupert's efficient agency, they were able to spend that night at Utrecht, and the next day went on. It seemed to Dolly that every hour was separating her further from her father; which to be sure literally was true; nevertheless she had to give herself up to the witchery of that drive. The varied beauty, and the constant novelty on every hand, were a perpetual entertainment. Mrs. Copley even forgot herself and her grievances in looking out of the carriage windows; indeed, the only trouble she gave was in her frequent changing places with Dolly to secure now this and now that view.

"We haven't got such roads in Massachusetts," remarked Rupert. "This is what I call first-rate going."

"Have you got such anything else there?" Lawrence inquired smoothly.

"Not such land, I'm bound to say."

"No," said Dolly, "this is not in the least like Massachusetts, in anything. O mother, look at those cattle! why there must be thousands of them; how beautiful! You would not find such an immense level green plain in Massachusetts, Mr. St. Leger. I never saw such a one anywhere."

Mrs. Copley took that side of the carriage.

"It wouldn't be used for a pasture ground, if we had it there," said Rupert.

"Perhaps it would. I fancy it is too wet for grain," St. Leger answered.

"Now here is a lake again," said Dolly. "How large, and how pretty! Miles and miles, it must be. How pretty those little islands are, Mr. Babbage!"

Mrs. Copley exchanged again, and immediately burst out—

"Dolly, Dolly, did you see that woman's earrings? I declare they were a foot long."

"I beg your pardon—half a foot, Mrs. Copley."

"What do you suppose they are made of?"

"True gold or silver."

"Mercy! that's the oddest thing I've seen yet. I suppose Holland is a very rich country."

"And here come country houses and gardens again," said Dolly. "There's a garden filled with marble statues, mother."

Mrs. Copley shifted her seat to the other side to look at the statues, and directly after went back to see some curiously trimmed yews in another garden. So it went on; Dolly and her mother getting a good deal of exercise by the way. Mrs. Copley was ready for her dinner, and enjoyed it; and Dolly perceiving this enjoyed hers too.

Then they were delighted with Arnheim. They drove into the town towards evening; and the quaint, picturesque look of the place, lying bright in the sunshine of a warm September day, took the hearts of both ladies. The odd gables, the endless variety of building, the balconies hung with climbing vines; and above all, the little gardens, gay with fall flowers and furnished with arbours or some sort of shelter, under some of which people were taking tea, while in others the wooden tables and chairs stood ready though empty, testifying to a good deal of habitual out-of-door life; they stirred Dolly's fancy and Mrs. Copley's curiosity. Both of them were glad to spend the night in such a pretty place.

After they had had supper comfortably, Dolly left her mother talking to St. Leger and slipped out quietly to take a walk, having privately summoned Rupert to attend her. The walk was full of enjoyment. It lasted a good while; till Dolly began to grow a little tired, and the evening light was dying away; then the steps slackened which had been very brisk at setting out, and Dolly began to let her thoughts go beyond what was immediately before her. She was very much inclined to be glad now of Rupert's presence in the party. She perceived that he was already devoted to her service; not with Mr. St. Leger's pretensions, but with something more like the adoration a heathen devotee pays to his goddess. Rupert already watched her eyes and followed her wishes, sometimes before they were spoken. It was plain that she might rely upon him for all to which his powers would reach; and a strong element of good-will began to mix with her confidence in him. What could she do, to help make this journey a benefit to the boy? He had known little of good or gentle influences in his life; yet he was gentle himself and much inclined to be good, she thought. And he might be very important to her yet, before she got home.

"I don't know the first thing about this country," he broke the silence. "It was always a little spot in the corner of the map that I thought was no sort of count. Why, it's a grand place!"

"You ought to read about it in history."

"I never read much history, that's a fact," Rupert answered. "Never had much to read," he added with a laugh. "Fact is, my life up to now has been pretty much of a scrimmage for the needful."

"Knowledge is needful," said Dolly.

"That's a fact; but a fellow must live first, you see. And that warn't always easy once."

"And what are your plans or prospects? What do you mean to be—or do? what do you mean to make of yourself?"

Rupert half laughed. "I haven't any prospects—to speak of. In fact, I don't see ahead any further than Venice. As to what I am to be, or do,—I expect that will be settled without any choice of mine. I've got along, so far, somehow; I guess I'll get along yet."

"Are you a Christian?" Dolly asked, following a sudden impulse.

"I guess I ain't what you mean by that."

"What do you mean by it?"

"Well—where I come from, they call Christians folks that have j'ined the church."

"That's making a profession," said Dolly.

"Yes, I've heard folks call it that."

"But what is the reality? What do you think a man professes when he joins the church?"

"I'll be shot if I know," Rupert answered, looking at her hard in the fading light. "I'd like first-rate to hear you say."

"It is just to be a servant of Christ," said Dolly. "A true servant, 'doing the will of God from the heart.'"

"How are you going to know what His will is? I should be bothered if you asked me."

"Oh, He has told us that," said Dolly, surprised. "In the Bible."

"Then I s'pose you've got to study that considerable."

"Certainly."

"Well, don't it say things pretty different from what most folks do?"

"Yes. What then?"

"Then it wouldn't be just easy to get along with it, I should think."

"What then?"

"Well!" said Rupert,—"how are you going to live in the world, and not do as the world do?"

"Then you have studied the Bible a little?"

"No, fact, I haven't," said Rupert. "But I've heard folks talk now and again; and that's what I think about it."

"Suppose it is difficult?" said Dolly. "But it is really not difficult, if one is a true servant of God and not only make-believe. Suppose it were difficult, though. Do you remember what Christ said of the two ways, serving Him and not serving Him?"

Rupert shook his head.

"Have you got a Bible of your own?"

"No," said Rupert. "That's an article I never owned yet. I've always wanted other things more, you see."

"And I would rather want everything else in the world," said Dolly. "I mean, I would rather be without everything else."

"Surely!" said Rupert.

"Because I am a servant of Christ, you see. Now that is what I want you to be. And as to the question of ease or difficulty—this is what I was going to repeat to you. Jesus said, that those who hear and obey Him are like a house planted on a rock; fixed and firm; a house that when the storms come and the winds blow, is never so much as shaken. But those who do not obey Him are like a house built on the sand. When the storms blow and the winds beat, it will fall terribly and all to ruins. It seems to me, Mr. Babbage, that that is harder than the other."

"Suppose the storms do not come?" said Rupert.

"I guess they come to most people," said Dolly soberly. "But the Lord did not mean these storms merely. I don't know whether He meant them at all. He meant the time by and by.—Come, we must go home," said Dolly, beginning to go forward again. "I wish you would be a servant of Christ, Mr. Babbage!"

"Why?"

"Oh, because all that is sure and strong and safe and happy is on that side," said Dolly, speaking eagerly. "All that is noble and true and good. You are sure of nothing if you are not a Christian, Mr. Babbage; you are not sure even of yourself. Temptation may whirl you, you don't know where, and before you know it and before you can help it. And when the storms come, those storms—your house will—go down—in the sands"—— And to Rupert's enormous astonishment, Dolly's voice broke here, and for a second she stood still, drawing long sobs; then she lifted her head with an effort, took his arm and went swiftly back on the way to the hotel. He had not been able to say one word. Rupert could not have the faintest notion of the experience which had pointed and sharpened Dolly's last words; he could not imagine why, as they walked home, she should catch a hasty breath now and then, as he knew she did, a breath which was almost a sob; but Rupert Babbage was Dolly's devoted slave from that day.

Lawrence himself marvelled somewhat at the appearance and manner of the young lady in the evening. The talk and the thoughts had roused and stirred Dolly, with partly the stir of pain, but partly also the sense of work to do and the calling up of all her loving strength to do it. Her cheek had a little more colour than usual, her eye a soft hidden fire, her voice a thrill of tender power. She was like, Lawrence thought, a most rare wild wood flower, some spiritual orchis or delicious and delicate geranium; in contrast to the severely trained, massive and immoveable tulips and camellias of society. She was at a vexatious distance from him, however; and handled him with a calm superiority which no woman of the world could have improved upon. Only it was nature with Dolly.



CHAPTER XIX.

SEEING SIGHTS.

The next day's journey was uninteresting and slow. Mrs. Copley grew tired; and even dinner and rest at a good hotel failed to restore her spirits.

"How many more days will it be before we get to Dresden?" she desired to know.

"Keep up your courage, Mrs. Copley," said Lawrence. "Remember the Green vaults! We have some work before us yet to get there."

"We shall not get there to-morrow?"

"We shall hardly do more than reach Cassel to-morrow."

"I don't know anything about Cassel. Will it be nothing but sand all the way, like to-day? We have left everything pretty behind us in Holland."

"I think the way will mend a little," Lawrence allowed.

"What place is next to Cassel?"

"As our resting place for the night? I am afraid it will take us two days to get to Weimar."

"And then Dresden?"

"No, then Leipzig."

"Oh, I should like to see Leipzig," cried Dolly.

"What for?" said her mother. "I am sure all these places are nothing to us, and I think the country is very stupid. And I like travelling where I know what the people say. I feel as if I had got five thousand miles from anywhere. What do you suppose keeps your father, Dolly?"

"I don't know, mother."

"You may write and tell him, if he don't come to us in Dresden I shall go back. This isn't my notion of pleasure."

"But it is doing you good, mother."

"I hadn't anything I could eat this evening. If you don't mind, Dolly, I'll go to bed."

Dolly did mind, for she longed for a walk again among the strange scenes and people. As it was not to be had this time, she sat at her window and looked out. It was moonlight, soft weather; and her eye was at least filled with novelty enough, even so. But her thoughts went back to what was not novel. The day had been dull and fatiguing. Dolly's spirits were quiet. She too was longing for her father, with a craving, anxious longing that was more full of fear than of hope. And as she thought it over again, she did not like her position. Her mother was little of a shield between her and what she wanted to escape, Lawrence St. Leger's attentions; and she could but imperfectly protect herself. True, she knew she gave him no direct encouragement. Yet he was constantly with her, he had the right of taking care of her, he let her see daily what a pleasure it was, and she was not able to turn it into the reverse of pleasure. She could not repulse him, unless he pushed his advances beyond a certain point; and Lawrence was clever enough to see that he had better not do that. He took things for granted a little, in a way that annoyed Dolly. She knew she gave him no proper encouragement; nevertheless, the things she could not forbid might seem to weave a tacit claim by and by. She wished for her father on her own account. But when she thought of what was keeping him, Dolly's head went down in agony. "O father, father!" she cried in the depths of her heart, "why don't you come? how can you let us ask in vain? and what dreadful, dreadful entanglement it must be that has such power over you to make you do things so unlike yourself! Oh, what shall I do? what shall I do? I cannot reach him now—only by letters."

Mrs. Copley got up next morning in renewed spirits. "Dolly," she inquired while she was dressing, in which business Dolly always helped her,—"is anything settled between St. Leger and you?"

"Settled, mother? He is father's secretary,—at least so he calls himself,—taking care of us in father's absence. There is nothing else settled, nor to be settled."

"You know why he is here, child."

"Because father isn't, mother; and I should like to make the exchange as quickly as possible."

"What's the matter with him, Dolly?"

"The principal thing is, he won't take a hint."

"No, no; I mean, what fault do you find in him?"

"That, mother. Nothing else."

"He worships the ground you tread on."

"Mother, I think that is a pity. Don't you?"

"I think you ought to be very glad of it. I am. Dolly, the St. Legers are very well off; he is rich, and his father is rich; and there is that beautiful place, and position, and everything you could desire."

"Position!" Dolly repeated. "Mother, I think I make my own position. At any rate, I like it better than his."

"O Dolly! the St. Legers"——

"They are not anything particular, mother. Rich bankers; that is all."

"And isn't that enough?"

"Well, no," said Dolly, laughing. "It would take a good deal more to tempt me away from you and father."

"But, child, you've got to go. And Mr. St. Leger is as fond of you as ever he can be."

"He will not break his heart, mother. He is not that sort. Don't think it."

"I don't care if he did!" said Mrs. Copley, half crying. "It is not him I am thinking of; it is you."

"Thank you, mother," said Dolly, putting her arms round her mother's neck and kissing her repeatedly. "But I am not going to leave you for any such person. And I don't think so much of money as you do."

"Dolly, Dolly, money is a good thing."

"There is not enough of it in the world to buy me, mother. Don't try to fix my price."

The rest of that day Dolly was gay. Whether from the reaction of spirits natural to seventeen, or whether she were lightened in heart by the explicitness of her talk with her mother in the morning, she was the life of the day's journey. The road itself mended; the landscape was often noble, with fine oak and beech woods, and lovely in its rich cultivation; meadows and ploughed fields and tracts of young grain and smiling villages alternating with one another. There was no tedium in the carriage from morning to night. St. Leger and Rupert laughed at Dolly, and with her; and Mrs. Copley, in spite of chewing the cud of mortification at Dolly's impracticableness, was beguiled into forgetting herself. Sometimes this happy effect could be managed; at other times it was impossible. But more days followed, not so gay.

"I'm as tired as I can be!" was Mrs. Copley's declaration, as they were approaching Leipzig.

"We'll soon get to our hotel now," said Lawrence soothingly.

"'Tain't that," said Mrs. Copley; "I am tired of hotels too. I am tired of going from one place to another. I should like to stay still somewhere."

"But it is doing you good, mother."

"I don't see it," said Mrs. Copley. "And what do you mean by its doing me good, Dolly? What is good that you don't feel? It's like something handsome that you can't see; and if you call that good, I don't. I wonder if life's to everybody what it is to me!"

"Not exactly," said Lawrence. "Not everybody can go where he likes and do what he will, and have such an attendant handmaiden everywhere."

"Do what I will!" cried Mrs. Copley, who like other dissatisfied people did not like to have her case proved against her,—"much you know about it, Mr. St. Leger! If I had my will, I would go back to America."

"Then you would have to do without your handmaiden," said Lawrence. "You do not think that we on this side are so careless of our own advantage as to let such a valuable article go out of the country?"

It was said with just such a mixture of jest and earnest that Dolly could hardly take it up. The words soothed Mrs. Copley, though her answer hardly sounded so.

"I suppose that is what mothers have to make up their minds to," she said. "Just when their children are ready to be some comfort to them, off they go, to begin the same game on their own account. I sometimes wonder whether it is worth while to live at all!"

"But one can't help that," said Rupert.

"I don't see what it amounts to."

"Mother, think of the Dresden Green vaults," said Dolly.

"Well, I do," said Mrs. Copley. "That keeps me up. But when I have seen them, Dolly, what will keep me up then?"

"Why, Venice, mother."

"And suppose I don't like Venice? I sometimes think I shan't."

"Then we will not stay there, dear. We will go on to Sorrento."

"After all, Dolly, one can't keep always going somewhere. One must come to a stop."

"The best way is not to think of that till one is obliged to do it," said Lawrence. "Enjoy while you have to enjoy."

"That ain't a very safe maxim, seems to me," said Rupert. "One's rope might get twisted up."

"It is the maxim of a great many wise men," said Lawrence, ignoring the figure.

"Is it wise?" said Dolly. "Would you spend your money so, like your time? spend to the last farthing, before you made any provision for what was to be next?"

"No, for I need not. In money matters one can always take care to have means ahead."

"So you can in the other thing."

"How?" said Rupert, and "How?" said Lawrence, in the same breath. "You cannot always, as Mrs. Copley said, go on finding new places to go to and new things to see."

"I'd have what would put me above the need of that."

"What? Philosophy? Stoicism?"

"No," said Dolly softly.

"Have you discovered the philosopher's stone?" said Lawrence; "and can you turn common things into gold for your purposes?"

"Yes," said Dolly in the same way.

"Let us hear how, won't you? Is it books, or writing, or art perhaps? You are very fond of that, I know."