"Father, I think the world might be better than it is. And one person helps on another for good or for evil. And St. Paul was not of your opinion."

"St. Paul? What did he say about it? That one must not drink wine? Not at all. He told Timothy, or somebody, to take it, for his stomach's sake."

"But he said,—that if meat made his brother to offend, he would eat no meat while the world stood, lest he made his brother to offend. And meat is certainly a good thing."

"Well, there are just two things about it," said Mr. Copley; "meat is not wine, and I am not St. Paul. A little more, Lawrence. If it is not a man's duty to look after his neighbour's potations, neither is it a woman's. Dolly is young; she will learn better."

If she did not, Lawrence thought, she would be an inconvenient helpmeet for him. He was very much in love; but certainly he would not wish his wife to take up a crusade against society. Perhaps Dolly would learn better; he hoped so. Yet the little girl had some reason, too; for her father gave her trouble, Lawrence knew. "I'm sorry," he thought, "deuced sorry! but really I can't be expected to take Mr. Copley, wine and all, on my shoulders. Really it is not my look-out."

Dolly went home very sober and careful. It is true, not much wine had been drunk that day. Yet she knew a line had been passed, the passing of which was significant of future licence, and introductory to it. And that it had been done in her presence was to prove to her that her influence could avail nothing. It was bravado. What lay before her now?

"Rupert," she said suddenly, as they were walking together, "let us make a solemn pledge, you and I, each to the other, that we will never drink wine nor anything of the sort; unless we must, for sickness, you know."

"What would be the good of that?" said the young man, laughing.

"I don't know," said Dolly, from whose eyes, on the contrary, hot tears began to drop. "Perhaps I shall save you, and you may save me; how can we tell?"

"But we could keep from it just the same, without pledging ourselves?" said Rupert, soberly enough now.

"Could; but we might be tempted. If we do this, maybe we can help other people, as well as each other."

The tears were coming so thick from Dolly's eyes that Rupert's heart was sore for her. She was brushing them away, right and left, but he saw them glitter and fall; and he thought the man who could, for the sake of a glass of wine, cause such tears to be shed, was—I won't say what he thought he was. He was mad against Mr. Copley and St. Leger too. He promised whatever Dolly wanted.

And when they were at home, and an opportunity was found, the agreement abovementioned was written out, and Rupert made two copies, and one of them he kept and one Dolly kept; both signed with both their names.

So Rupert was safe. From that day, however, things went less well with Mr. Copley. He began by small degrees to withdraw himself from the constant attendance upon his wife and daughter which he had hitherto practised, leaving them again to Lawrence's care. By little and little this came about. Mr. Copley excused himself in the morning, and was with them in the evening; then after a while he was missing in the evening. Dolly tried to hold him fast, by getting him to sit for his picture; and the very observation under which she held him so, showed her that he was suffering from evil influences. His eyes had lost something of their frank, manly sparkle; avoided hers; looked dull and unsteady. The lines of his whole face inexplicably were changed; an expression of feebleness and something like humiliation taking place of the alert, bold, self-sufficient readiness of look and tone which had been natural to him. Dolly read it all, with a heart torn in two, and painted it as she read it; making a capital picture of him. But it grieved Dolly sorely, while it delighted everybody else.

"What is it worth, father?" she asked, concealing as well as she could what she felt.

"Worth? it's worth anything you please. It is glorious, Dolly!"

"I work for money," she said archly.

"Upon my word, you could turn a pretty penny if you did. This is capital work," said he, turning to Lawrence. "If this had been done on ivory, now"——

"I did a likeness of Mr. St. Leger for his mother—that was on ivory. She sent me ten pounds for it."

"Ten pounds to her. To anybody else, I should say it was worth twenty,—well," said Mr. Copley.

"So I say, sir," Lawrence answered. "I am going to pay that price for my copy."

"Then will you pay me twenty pounds, sir?"

"I?" said Mr. Copley. "Not exactly, Dolly! I am not made of money, like your friend Lawrence here. Wish I could, and you should have it."

"Will you get me customers, then, father?"

"Customers!" echoed Mr. Copley.

"Yes. Because you are not made of money, you know, father; and I want a good deal of money."

"You!" said Mr. Copley, looking at her. For, indeed, Dolly had never been one of those daughters who make large demands on their father's purse. But Dolly answered now with a calm, practical tone and manner.

"Yes, I do, father; and mother has a longing for some of those Arabian Nights things in the curiosity shops. You know people enough here, father; show them your picture and get me customers."

"Don't be ridiculous, Dolly," said her father. "We are not at the point of distress yet. And," he added in a graver tone, as Lawrence left the room, "you must remember, that even if I were willing to see my daughter working as a portrait-painter, Mr. St. Leger might have a serious objection to his wife doing it—or a lady who is to be his wife."

"Mr. St. Leger may dispose of his wife when he gets her," said Dolly calmly. "I am not that lady."

"Yes, you are."

"Not if I know anything about it."

"Then you don't!" said Mr. Copley. "It is proverbial that girls never know their own minds. Why, Dolly, it would be the making of you, child."

"No, father; only of my dresses."

Mr. Copley was a little provoked.

"What's your objection to St. Leger? Can you give one?" he asked hotly.

"Father, he doesn't suit me."

"You don't like him, because you don't like him. A real woman's reason! Isn't he handsome?"

"Very. And sleepy."

"He's wide awake enough for purposes of business."

"Maybe; not for purposes of pleasure. Father, beautiful paintings and grand buildings are nothing to him; nothing at all; and music might be the tinkling of tin kettles for all the meaning he finds in it. Father, dear, do get me some customers!"

"You are a silly girl, Dolly!" said her father, breaking away, and not very well pleased. Neither did he bring her customers. Those were not the days of photographs. Dolly took to painting little bits of views in Venice; here a palace; there a bridge over a canal; the pillars with the dragon and St. Theodore, the Place of St. Mark, bits of the Riva with boats; she finished up these little pictures with great care and delicacy of execution, and then employed Rupert to dispose of them in the stationers' and fancy shops. He had some difficulty at first in finding the right market for her wares; however, he finally succeeded; and Dolly could sell as many pictures as she could paint. True, not for a great price; they did not pay so well as likenesses; but Dolly took what she could get, feeling very uncertain of supplies for a time that was coming. Mr. Copley certainly was not flush with his money now; and she did not flatter herself that his ways were mending.

Less and less did his wife and daughter see of his company.

"Rupert," said Dolly doubtfully, one day, "do you know where my father goes, so much of the time?"

"No," said Rupert; "that's just what I don't. But I can find out, easy."

Dolly did not say, Do; she did not say anything; she stood pondering and anxious by the window. Neither did Rupert ask further; he acted.

It came by degrees to be a pretty regular thing, that Mr. Copley spent the evening abroad, excused himself from going anywhere with his family, and when they did see him wore an uncertain, purposeless, vagrant sort of look and air. By degrees this began to strike even Mrs. Copley.

"I wish you would just make up your mind to marry Mr. St. Leger!" she said almost weepingly one day. "Then all would go right. I believe it would make me well, to begin with; and it would bring your father right back to his old self."

"How, mother?" Dolly said sadly.

"It would give him spirit at once. It is because he is out of spirits that he does so." (Mrs. Copley did not explain herself.) "I know, if he were once sure of seeing you Mrs. St. Leger, all would come right. Lawrence would help him; he could help him then."

"Who would help me?"

"Nonsense, Dolly! Who would help you choose your dresses and wear your diamonds; that is all the difficulty you would have. But all's going wrong!" said Mrs. Copley, sinking into tears; "and you are selfish, like everybody else, and think only of yourself."

Dolly bore this in silence. It startled her, however, greatly, to find her own view of things held by her much less sharp-sighted mother. She pondered on what was best to do. Should she sit still and quietly see her father lost irretrievably in the bad habits which were creeping upon him? But what step could she take? She asked herself this question evening after evening.

It was late one night, and Lawrence as well as her father had been out ever since dinner. Mrs. Copley, weary and dispirited, had gone to bed. Dolly stood at the window looking out, not to see how the moonlight sparkled on the water and glanced on the vessels, but in a hopeless sort of expectancy watching for her father to come. The stream of passers-by had grown thin, and was growing thinner.

"Rupert," Dolly spoke after a long silence, "do you know where my father is?"

"Can't say I do. I could give a pretty fair guess, though, if you asked me."

"Could you take me to him?"

"Take you to him!" exclaimed the young man, starting.

"Can you find the way? Where is it?"

"I've been there often enough," said Rupert.

"What place is it?"

"The queerest place you ever saw. Do you recollect Mr. St. Leger telling us once about wine-shops in Venice? You and he were talking"——

"Yes, yes, I remember. Is it one of those? Not a cafe?"

"Not a cafe at all; neither a cafe nor a trattoria. Just a wine-shop. Nothing in it but wine casks, and the mugs or jugs of white and blue crockery that they draw the wine into; it's the most ridiculous place altogether I ever was in. I haven't been in it now, that's a fact."

"What were you there for so often, then?"

"Well," said Rupert, "I was looking after things."

"Drink wine and eat nothing!" said Dolly again. "Are there many people there?"

"Well, you can eat if you have a mind to; there are folks enough to sell you things; though they don't belong to the establishment. They come in from the street, with ever so many sorts of things, directly they see a customer sit down; fish and oysters, and cakes and fruit. But the shop sells nothing but wine. Mr. St. Leger says that is good."

"Not many people there?" Dolly asked again.

"No; not unless at a busy time. There won't be many there now, I guess."

"What makes you think my father is there?"

"I've seen him there pretty often," Rupert said in a low voice.

Dolly stood some minutes silent, thinking, and struggling with herself. When she turned to Rupert at the end of those minutes, her air was quite composed and her voice was clear and calm.

"Can you take me there, Rupert? Can you find the way?"

"I know it as well as the way to my mouth. You see, I didn't know but maybe—I couldn't tell what you might take a notion to want me to do; so I just practised, till I had got the ins and outs of the thing. And there are a good many ins and outs, I can tell you. But I know them."

"Then we will go," said Dolly. "I'll be ready in two minutes."

It was a brilliant moonlight night, as I said. Venice, the bride of the Adriatic, lay as if robed in silver for her wedding. The air was soft, late as the time of year was; Dolly had no need of any but a light wrap to protect her in her midnight expedition. Rupert called a gondola, and presently they were gliding along, as still as ghosts, under the shadow of bridges, past glistening palace fronts, again in the deep shade of a wall of buildings. Wherever the light struck it was like molten silver; facades and carvings stood sharply revealed; every beauty of the weird city seemed heightened and spiritualised; almost glorified; while the silence, the outward peace, gave still more the impression of a place fair-like and unreal. It was truly a wonderful sail, a marvellous passage through an enchanted city, never to be forgotten by either of the two young people; who went for some distance in a silence as if a spell were upon them too.

At Dolly's age, with all its elasticity, some aspects of trouble are more overwhelming than in later years. When one has not measured life, not learned yet the relations and proportions of things, one imagines the whole earth darkened by the cloud which is but hiding the sun from the spot where our feet stand. And before one has seen what wonders Time can do, the ruin wrought by an avalanche or a flood seems irreparable. It is inconceivable, that the bare and torn rocks should be clothed again, the choking piles of rubbish ever be anything but dismal and unsightly, the stripped fields ever be green and flourishing, or the torn-up trees be ever replaced. Yet Time does it all. Come after a while to look again, and the traces of past devastation are not easy to find; nature's weaving has so covered, and nature's embroidery has so adorned, the bald places. In human life there is something like this often done; though, as I said, youth wots not of it and does not believe in it. So Dolly this night saw her little life a wilderness, which had been a garden of flowers. Some flowers might be lifting their heads yet, but what Dolly looked at was the destruction. Wrought by her own father's hand! I cannot tell how that thought stung and crushed Dolly. What would anything else in the world have mattered, so she could have kept him? help could have been found; but to lose him, her father, and not by death, but by change, by dishonour, by loss of his identity—Dolly felt indeed that a storm had come upon the little garden of her life from the sweeping ruin of which there could be no revival. She could hardly hold her head up for a long distance of that midnight sail; yet she did, and noted as they passed the fairy glories of the scene. Just noted them, to deepen, if possible, the pangs at her heart. All this beauty, all this outward delight, mocked the inner reality; and made sharp the sense of it with the contrast of what might have been. As they went along, Venice became to her fancy a grave and monument of lost things, which floated together in her mind's vision. Past struggles for freedom, beaten back or faded out; vanished patriotism and art, with their champions; extinct ambitions and powers; historical glories evaporated, as it were, leaving only a scent upon the air; what was left at Venice but monuments? and like it now her own little life gone out and gone down! For so it seemed to Dolly. Even if she succeeded in her mission, and brought her father home, what safety, what security could she have? And if she did not bring him—then all was lost indeed. It was lost anyhow, she thought, as far as her own life was concerned. Her father could not be what he had been again. "O father! my father!" was poor Dolly's bitter cry, "if you had taken anything else from me, and only left me yourself!"

After a long time, when she spoke to Rupert, it was in a quiet, unaltered voice.

"Is this the shortest way, Rupert?"

"As like as not it's the longest. But, you see, it's the only way I know. I've always got there starting from the Place of St. Mark; and that way I know what I am about; but though I daresay there's a short cut home, I've never been it, and don't know it."

Dolly added no more.

"It's a bit of a walk from St. Mark's," Rupert went on. "Do you mind?"

"No," said Dolly, sighing. "Rupert, I wish you were a Christian friend! You are a good friend, but I wish you were a Christian!"

"Why just now?"

"Nobody else can give one comfort. You cannot, Rupert, with all the will in the world; there is no comfort in anything you could tell me. I have only one Christian friend on this side of the Atlantic; and that is Mrs. Jersey; and she might as well be in America too, where Aunt Hal is!"

Dolly was crying. It went to Rupert's heart.

"What could a Christian friend say to you?" he asked at length.

"Remind me of something, or of some words, that I ought to remember," said Dolly, still weeping.

"Of what?" said Rupert. "If you know, tell me. Remind yourself; that's as good as having some one else remind you. What comfort is there in religion for a great trouble? Is there any?"

"Yes," said Dolly.

"What then? Tell us, Miss Dolly. I may want it some time, as well as you."

"I suppose everybody is pretty sure to want it, some time in his life," said Dolly sadly, but trying to wipe away her tears.

"Let's have the comfort then," said Rupert, "if you've got it."

"Why, are you in trouble, Rupert?" she said, rousing up. "What about?"

"Never mind; let's have the comfort; that's the thing wanted just now. What would you say to me now if I wanted it pretty bad?"

"The trouble is, it is so hard to believe what God says," Dolly said, speaking half to herself and half to her companion.

"What does He say? Is it anything a fellow can take hold of and hold on to? I never could make out much by what I've heard folks tell; and I never heard much anyhow, to begin with."

"One of the things that are good to me," said Dolly, bowing her face on her hand, "is—that Jesus knows."

"Knows what?"

"All about it—everything—my trouble, and your trouble, if you have any."

"I don't see the comfort in that. If He knows, why don't He hinder? I suppose He can hinder?"

"He does hinder whatever would be real harm to His people; He has promised that."

"Well, ain't this real harm, that is worrying you?" said Rupert. "What do you call harm?"

"Pain and trouble are not always harm," said Dolly, "for His children often have them, I know; and no trouble seems sweet at the minute, but bitter; and the sweet fruits come afterward. Oh, it's so bitter now!" cried poor Dolly, unable to keep the tears back again;—"but He knows. He knows."

"If He knows," said Rupert, wholly unable to understand this reasoning, "why doesn't He hinder? That's what I look at."

"I don't know," said Dolly faintly.

"What comforts you in that, then?" said Rupert almost impatiently. "That's too big a mouthful for me."

"No, you're wrong," said Dolly. "He knows why. I have the comfort of that, and so I am sure there is a why. It is not all vague chance and confusion, with no hand to rule anything. Don't you see what a difference that makes?"

"Do you mean to say, that everything that happens is for the best?"

"No," said Dolly. "Wrong can never be as good as right. Only, Rupert, God will so manage things that to His children—to His children—good shall come out of evil, and nothing really hurt them."

"Then the promise is only for them?"

"That's all. How could it be for the others?"

"I don't see it," said Rupert. "Seems to my eyes as if black was black and white white; it's the fault of my eyes, I s'pose. It is only moonshine to my eyes, that makes black white."

"Rupert, you do not understand. I will tell you. You know the story of Joseph. Well, when his brothers tried to murder him, that was what you call evil, wasn't it?"

"Black, and no moonshine on it."

"Yet it led to his being sold into Egypt."

"What was the moonshine on that? He was a slave, warn't he?"

"But that brought him to be governor of Egypt; he was the means of the plenty in the land through those years of famine; and by his power and influence his family was placed in the best of the land when starvation drove them down there."

"But why must he be sold a slave to begin with?"

"Good reasons. As a servant of Potiphar he learned to know all about the land and its produce and its cultivation, and the peasant people that cultivated it. If it had not been for the knowledge he gained as a slave, Joseph could never have known what to do as a governor."

"I never thought of that," said Rupert, his tone changing.

"Then when he was thrown into prison, you would have said that was a black experience too?"

"I should, and no mistake."

"And there, among the great prisoners of state, he learned to know about the politics of the country, and heard what he never could have heard talked about anywhere else; and there, by interpreting their dreams, he recommended himself to the high officers of Pharaoh. Except through the prison, it is impossible to see how he, a poor foreigner, could ever have come to be so distinguished at the king's court; for the Egyptians hated and despised foreigners."

"I'll be whipped if that ain't a good sermon," said Rupert drily; "and what's more, I can understand it, which I can't most sermons I've heard. But look here,—do you think God takes the same sort of look-out for common folks? Joseph was Joseph."

"The care comes of His goodness, not out of our worthiness," said Dolly, the tears dripping from her eyes. "To Him, Dolly is Dolly, and Rupert is Rupert, just as truly. I know it, and yet I am so ungrateful!"

"But tell me, then," Rupert went on, "how comes it that God, who can do everything, does not make people good right off? Half the trouble in the world comes of folks' wrong-headedness; why don't He make 'em reasonable?"

"He tries to make them reasonable."

"Tries! Why don't He do it?"

"You, for instance," said Dolly—"because He has given you the power of choice, Rupert; and you know yourself that obedience would not be obedience if it were not voluntary."

On this theological nut Rupert ruminated, without finding anything to say.

"You have comforted me," Dolly went on presently. "Thank you, Rupert. You have made me remember what I had forgotten. Just look at that palace front in the moonlight!"

"The world's a queer place, though," said Rupert, not heeding the palace front.

"What are you thinking of?"

"This city, for one thing. I've been, reading that book you lent me. Hasn't there been confusion enough, though, up and down these canals, and in and out of those palaces! and the rest of the world is pretty much in the same way. Only in America it ain't quite so bad. I suppose because we haven't had time enough."



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WINE-SHOP.

It was past twelve by the clock tower when the two left the gondola and entered the Place of St. Mark. The old church with its cupolas, the open Place, the pillars with St. Theodore and the dragon, the palace of the Doges with its open stone work, showed like a scene out of another world; so unearthly beautiful, so weird and so stately. There had been that day some festival or public occasion which had called the multitude together, and lingerers were still to be seen here and there, and the windows of cafes and trattorie were lighted, and the buzz of voices came from them. Dolly and Rupert crossed the square, however, without more than a moment's lingering, and plunged presently into what seemed to her a labyrinth of confused ways. Such ways! an alley in New York would be broad in comparison; two women in hoops would have been obliged to use some skill to pass each other; they threaded the old city in the strangest manner. Rupert went steadily and without hesitation, Dolly wondered how he could, through one into another, up and down, over bridge after bridge, clearly knowing his way; yet it was a nervous walk to her, for more than one reason. Sometimes the whole line of one of these narrow streets, if they could be called so, would be perfectly dark; the moonlight not getting into it, and only glittering on a palace cornice or a street corner in view; others, lying right for the moonbeams, were flooded with them from one turning to another. Most of the shops were closed; but the sellers of fruit had not shut up their windows yet, and now and then a cook-shop made a most peculiar picture, with its blazing fire at the back, and its dishes of cooked and uncooked viands temptingly displayed at the street front. Steadily and swiftly Rupert and Dolly passed on; saw these things without stopping to look at them, but yet saw them so that in all after-life those peculiar effects of light and shade, fireshine and moonlight, Italian fruits and vegetables, and fish coloured by the one or the other illumination, were never lost from memory. Here there would be a red Vulcanic glow in the interior of a shop where the furnace fire was flaming up about the pots and pans of cookery; and at the street front, at the window, the moonlight glinting white from the edge of a dish, or glancing from a pane of glass; and then again reflected from the still waters of a canal. The two saw these things, and never forgot; but Dolly was silent and Rupert did not know what to say. Yet he thought he felt her arm tremble sometimes, and would have given a great deal to be able to speak to the purpose. Perhaps Dolly at length found the need of distraction to her thoughts, for she it was that first said anything.

"I hope mother will not wake up!"

"Why?"

"She would not understand my being away."

"Then she does not know?"

"I did not dare tell her. I had to risk it. I do not want her ever to know, Rupert, if it can be helped."

"She'll be no wiser for me. What are you going to do now, Miss Dolly? We ain't far off the place."

"I am going to get my father to go home with me. You needn't come in. Better not. You go back to the gondola and wait there for a little say—a quarter or half an hour; if I do not come before that, then go on home."

"But you cannot go anywhere alone?"

"Oh no; I shall have father; but I cannot tell which way he may take to get home. You go back to the gondola,—or no, be in front of St. Mark's; that would be better."

"I am afraid to leave you, Miss Dolly."

"You need not. One gets to places where there is nothing to fear any more."

Rupert was not sure what she meant; her voice had a peculiar cadence which struck him. Then they turned another corner, and a few steps ahead of them saw the light from a window making a strip of illumination across the street, which here was unvisited by the moonbeams.

"That is the place," said Rupert.

Dolly slackened her walk, and the next minute paused before the window and looked in. The light was not brilliant, yet sufficient to show several men within, some sitting and drinking, some in attendance; and Dolly easily recognised one among the former number. She drew her arm from Rupert's.

"Now go back to St. Mark's," she whispered. "I wish it. Yes, I would rather go in alone. Wait for me a little while in front of St. Mark's."

She stood still yet half a minute, making her observations or getting up her resolution; then with a light, swift step passed into the shop. Rupert could not obey her and go at once; he felt he must see what she did and what her reception promised to be; he came a little nearer to the window and gazed anxiously in. The minutes he stood there burned the scene for ever into his memory.

The light shone in a wide, spacious apartment, which it but gloomily revealed. There was nothing whatever of the outward attractions with which in New York or London a drinking saloon, not of a low order, would have been made pleasant and inviting. The wine had need to be good, thought Rupert, when men would come to such a place as this and spend time there, simply for the pleasure of drinking it. Yet several men were there, taking that pleasure, even so late as the hour was; and they were respectable men, at least if their dress could be taken in testimony. They sat with mugs and glasses before them; one had a plate of olives also, another had some other tit-bit or provocative; one seemed to be in converse with Mr. Copley, who was not beyond converse yet, though Rupert saw he had been some time drinking. His face was flushed a little, his eyes dull, his features overspread with that inane stupidity which comes from long-continued and purely sensual indulgence of any kind, especially under the fumes of wine. To the side of this man, Rupert saw Dolly go. She went in, as I said, with a light, quick step, looked at nobody else, made straight to her father, and laid a hand upon his shoulder. With that she threw back her head-covering a little,—it was some sort of a scarf, of white and brown worsted knitting, which lay around her head like a glory, in Rupert's eyes,—and showed her face to her father. Fair and delicate and sweet, bright and grave at once, for she did look bright even there, she stood at his side like his good angel, with her little hand upon his shoulder. No wonder Mr. Copley started and looked frightened; that was the first look; and then confused. Rupert understood it all, though he could not hear what was said. He saw the man was embarrassed.

"Dolly!" said Mr. Copley, falling back upon his first thought, as the easiest to speak of,—"what is the matter?"

"Nothing with me, father. Will you take me home?"

"Where's your mother?"

"She is at home. But it is pretty late, father."

"Where's Lawrence?"

"I don't know."

"Where is Rupert, then?"

"He is out, somewhere. Will you go home with me, father?"

"How did you come here?" said Mr. Copley, sitting a little straighter up, and now beginning to replace or conceal confusion with displeasure.

"I will tell you. I will tell you on the way. But shall we go first, father? I don't like to stay here."

"Here? What in the name of ten thousand devils—— Who brought you here?"

"I am alone," said Dolly. "Hadn't we better go, father? and then we can talk as we go."

At this point a half tipsy Venetian rose, and stepping before the pair with a low reverence, said something to Mr. Copley, of which Dolly only understood the words, "La bella signorina;" they made her, however, draw her scarf forward over her face and brought Mr. Copley to his feet. He could stand, she saw, but whether he could walk very well was open to question.

"Signer, signor"—— he began, stammering and incensed. Dolly seized his arm.

"Shall we go, father? It is so late, and mother might want me. It is very late, father. Never mind anything, but come!"

Mr. Copley was sufficiently himself to see the necessity; nevertheless, his score must be paid; and his head was in a bad condition for reckoning. He brought out some silver from his pocket, and stood somewhat helplessly looking at it and at the shopman alternately; then with an awkward movement of his elbow contrived to throw over a glass, which fell on the floor and broke. Everybody was looking now at the father and daughter, and words came to Dolly's ears which made her cheek burn. But she stood calm, self-possessed, waiting with a somewhat lofty air of maidenly dignity; helped her father solve the reckoning, paid for the glass, and at last got hold of his arm and drew him away; after a gentle, grave salutation to the attendant which he answered profoundly, and which brought everybody in the little shop to his feet in involuntary admiration and respect. Dolly looked at nobody, yet with sweet courtesy made a distant sign of acknowledgment to their homage, and the next minute stood outside the shop in the dark little street and the mild, still air. I think, even at that minute, with the strange, startling inappropriateness of license which thoughts give themselves, there flashed across her a sense of the ironical contrast of things without and within her; without, Venice and her historical past and her monumental glory; within, a trembling little heart and present danger and a burden of dishonour. But that was only a flash; the needs of the minute banished all thinking that was not connected with action; and the moment's business was to get her father home. She had no thought now for the picturesque revealings of the moonlight and obscurings of the shadow. Yet she was conscious of them, in that sharp flash of contrast.

At getting upon his feet and out into the air and gloom of the little street, Mr. Copley's head was very contused; or else he had taken more wine than his daughter guessed. He was not fit to guide himself, or to take care of her. As he seemed utterly at a standstill, Dolly naturally and unconsciously set her face to go the way she had come; for one or two turnings at least she was sure of it. Before those one or two turnings were made, however, she was shocked and scared to find that her father's walk was wavering; he swayed a little on his feet. The street was empty; and if it had not been, what help could Dolly ask for? A pang of great terror shot through her. She took her father's arm, to endeavour to hold him fast; a task rather too much for her little hands and slight frame; and feeling that in spite of her he still moved unsteadily, and that she was an insufficient help, Dolly's anguish broke forth in a cry; natural enough in its unreasoningness—

"O father, don't!—remember, I am all alone!"

How much was in the tone of those last words Dolly could not know; they hardly reached Mr. Copley's sense, though they went through and through another hearer. The next minute Rupert stood before the pair, and was offering his arm to Mr. Copley. Not trusting his patron, in the circumstances, to take care of his young mistress, Rupert had disobeyed her orders so far as to keep the two figures in sight; he had watched them from one turning to another, and had seen that his help was needed, even before he heard Dolly's cry. Then, with a spring, he was there. Mr. Copley leaned now upon his arm, and Dolly fell behind, thankful unspeakably for the relief. She knew by this time that she could never have found her way; and it was plain her father could not.

"Rupert," said Mr. Copley, half recognising the assistance afforded him, "you're a good fellow, and always in the way when you aren't wanted, by George!" But he leaned on his arm heavily.

Dolly followed close; she could not well keep beside them; and felt in that hour more thoroughly lonely perhaps than at any other of her life before or after. Rupert was a relief; and yet so the shame was increased. She stepped along through moonlight and shadow, feeling that light was gone out of her pathway of life for ever, as far as this world was concerned. What was left, when her father was lost to her?—her father!—and not by death; that would not have been to lose him utterly; but now his very identity was gone. Her father, whom all her life she had loved; manly, frank, able, active, taking the lead in every society where she had seen him, making other men do his bidding always, until the passion of gaining and the lust of drink got hold of him! Was it the same, that figure in front of her, leaning on somebody's arm and glad to lean, and going with lame, unsteady gait whither he was led, so like the way his mental course had been lately? Was that her father? The bitterness of Dolly's feeling it is impossible to put into words. Tears could bring no relief, and nature did not summon them to the impossible service. The fire at her heart would have burnt them up; for there was a strange passion of resistance and sense of wrong mixed with Dolly's bitter pain. The way was not short, and it seemed threefold the length it was; every step was so hard, and the crowd of thoughts was so disproportionately great.

They were rather ruminating thoughts of grief and pain, than considerative of what was to be done. For the first, the thing was to get Mr. Copley home. Dolly did not look beyond that. She was glad to find herself arrived at St. Mark's again; and presently they were all three in the gondola. Mr. Copley leaned in a corner, laid his head against a cushion, and slept, or seemed to sleep. The other two were as silent; but I think both felt at the moment as if they would never sleep again. Rupert's face was in shadow; he watched Dolly's face which was in light. She forgot it could be watched; her eyes stared into the moonshine, not seeing it, or looking through it; the sweet face was so very grave that the watcher felt his heart ache. Not the gentle gravity of young maidenhood, looking into the vague light; but the anxious, searching gaze of older life looking into the vague darkness. Rupert did not dare speak to her, though he longed. What would he not have given for the right and the power to comfort! But he knew he had neither. He had sense enough not to try.

It was customary for Mr. Copley, after he had been late out at night, to keep to his room until a late hour the next morning; so Dolly knew what she had to expect. It suited her very well this time, for she must think what she would say to her father when she next saw him. She took care that a cup of coffee such as he liked was sent him; and then, after her own slight breakfast, sat down to plan her movements. So Rupert found her, with her Bible in her lap, but not reading; sitting gazing out upon the bright waters of the lagoon. He came up to her, with a depth of understanding and sympathy in his plain features which greatly dignified them.

"Does that help?" said he, glancing at the book in Dolly's lap.

"This?" said Dolly. "What other help in the world is there?"

"Friends?" suggested Rupert.

"Yes, you were a great help last night," Dolly said slowly. "But there come times—and things—when friends cannot do anything."

"And then—what does the book do?"

"The book?" Dolly repeated again. "O Rupert! it tells of the Friend that can do everything!" Her eyes flushed with tears and she clasped her hands as she spoke.

"What?" said Rupert; for her action was eloquent, and he was curious; and besides he liked to make her talk.

Dolly looked at him and saw that the question was serious. She opened her book.

"Listen. 'Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'"

"That makes pretty close work of it. Can you get hold of that rope? and how much strain will it bear?"

"I believe it will bear anything," said Dolly slowly and thoughtfully; "if one takes hold with both hands. I guess the trouble with me is, that I only take hold with one."

"What do you do with the other hand?"

"Stretch it out towards something else, I suppose. For, see here, Rupert;—'Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee; because he trusteth in Thee.'—I am just ashamed of myself!" said Dolly, breaking down and bursting into tears.

"What for?" said Rupert.

"Because I do not trust so."

"I should think it would be very difficult."

"It ought not to be difficult to trust a friend whose truth you know. There! that has done me good," said the girl, sitting up and brushing away the tears. "Rupert, if there is anything you want to see or to do here in Venice, be about it; for I think we shall go off to Rome at once."

She told the same thing to St. Leger when he came in; and having got rid of both the young men set herself anew to consider how she should speak to her father. And consideration helped nothing; she could not tell; she had to leave it to the moment to decide.

It was late in the morning, later than the usual hour for the dejeuner a la fourchette, which Mr. Copley liked. He did not want anything to-day, his wife said; and she and Dolly and Rupert had finished their meal. Dolly contrived then that her mother should go out under Rupert's convoy, to visit the curiosity shop again, (nothing else would have tempted her), and to make one or two little purchases for which Dolly gave Rupert the means. When they were fairly off, she went to her father's room; he was up and dressed, she knew. She went with a very faint heart, not knowing in the least what she would do or say, but feeling that something must be said and done, both.

Mr. Copley was sitting listlessly in a chair by the window; miserable enough, Dolly could see by the gloomy blank of his face; looking out, and caring for nothing that he saw. His features showed traces of the evening before, in red eyes and pale cheeks; and yet worse, in the spiritless, abased expression, which was more than Dolly could bear. She had come in very quietly, but when she saw this she made one spring to his side and sank down on the floor before him, hiding her face on his knee. Mr. Copley's trembling hand presently lifted her up into his arms, and Dolly sat on his knee and buried her face in his breast. Neither of them was ready to speak; neither did speak for some time. It was Mr. Copley who began.

"Well, Dolly,—I suppose you will say to me that I have broken my word?"

"O father!"—it came in a sort of despair from Dolly's heart,—"what shall we do?"

Mr. Copley had certainly no answer ready to this question; and his next words were a departure.

"How came you to be at that place last night?"

"I was afraid you were there"——

"How did you dare come poking about through all those crooked ways, and at that time of night?"

"Father," Dolly said, without lifting her head, "that was nothing. I dared nothing, compared with what you dared!"

"I? You are mistaken, child. I did not run the slightest risk. In fact, I was only doing what everybody else does. You make much of nothing, in your inexperience."

"Father," said Dolly, with a great effort, "you promised me. And when a man cannot keep his promise"——

She had meant to be perfectly quiet; she had begun very calmly; but at that word, suddenly, her calmness failed her. It was too much; and with a sort of wailing cry, which in its forlornness reached and wrung even Mr. Copley's nerves, she broke into a terrible passion of weeping. Terrible! young hearts ought never to know such an agony; and never, never should such an agony be known for the shame or even the weakness of a father. The hand appointed to shield, the love which ought to shelter,—when the blow comes from that quarter, it finds the heart bare and defenceless indeed, and comes so much the harder in that it comes from so near. No other more distant can give such a stroke. And to the young heart, unaccustomed to sorrow, new to life, not knowing how many its burdens and how heavy; not knowing on the other hand the equalising, tempering effects of time; the first great pain comes crushing. The shoulders are not adjusted to the burden, and they feel as if they must break. Dolly's sobs were so convulsive and racking that her father was startled and shocked. What had he done? Alas, the man never knows what he has done; he cannot understand how women die, before their time, that death of the heart which is out of the range of masculine nature.

"Dolly!—Dolly!" Mr. Copley cried, "what is the matter? Don't, Dolly, if you love me. My child, what have I done? Don't you know everybody takes a little wine? Are you wiser than all the world?"

"You promised, father!" Dolly managed to say.

"Perhaps I promised too much. You see, Dolly,—don't cry so!—a man must do as the rest of the world do. It isn't possible to live a separate life, as you would have me. It would make me ridiculous. It would not do. There's no harm in a little wine, child."

"Father, you promised!" Dolly repeated, clinging to him. She was not shrinking away; her arms of love were wrapped round his neck as tenderly as even in old childish days; they had power over Mr. Copley, power which he could not quite resist nor break away from. He returned their pressure, he even kissed her, feeling, I am happy to say, a little ashamed of himself.

"You don't want me to be ridiculous, Dolly?" he repeated, not knowing what to say.

What should she answer to that? No, she did not want him to be ridiculous; and as he spoke she recalled the staggering, impotent figure of last night, in its unmanly feebleness and senseless idiocy. A sense of the difficulty of her task and the vanity of her representations came over Dolly; it gave her new food for tears, but the present effect was to make her stop them. I suppose despair does not weep. Dolly was not despairing, either.

"What shall we do, father?" she asked, ignoring all his remarks and suggestions.

"Do, Dolly? About what?"

"Don't you think we will not stay any longer in Venice?"

"For all I care! Where, then?"

"To Rome, father?"

"I thought you were to be in Rome at Christmas?"

"It is not so very long till Christmas."

"Is your mother agreed?"

"She will be, if you say so."

"If it pleases you, Dolly—I don't care."

"And, father, dear father! won't you keep your promise to me? What is to become of us, father?"

Some bitter tears flowed again as she said this quietly; but Mr. Copley knew they were flowing, and he had an intuitive sense that they were bitter. They embarrassed him.

"I'll make a bargain, Dolly," he said after a pause. "I'll do what you want of me—anything you want—if you'll marry St. Leger."

"But, father, I have not made up my mind to like him enough for that."

"You will like him well enough. If you were to marry him you would be devoted to him. I know you."

"I think the devotion ought to come first."

"Nonsense. That is romantic folly. Novels are one thing, and real life is another."

"I daresay; but do you object to people's being a little romantic?"

"When it interferes with their bread and butter, I do."

"Father, if you would drink no wine, we could all of us have as much bread and butter as we choose."

"You are always harping on that!" said Mr. Copley, frowning.

"Because, our whole life depends on it, father. You cannot bear wine as some people can, I suppose; the habit is growing on you; mother and I are losing you, we do not even have but half a sight of you; and—father—we are wanting necessaries. But I do not think of that," Dolly went on eagerly; "I do not care; I am willing to live on dry bread, and work for the means to get it; but I cannot bear to lose you, father! I cannot bear it!—and it will kill mother. She does not know; I have kept her from knowing; she knows nothing about what happened last night. O father, do not let her know! Would anything pay you for breaking her heart and mine? Is wine more to you than we are? O father, father! let us go home to America, and quit all these people and associations that make it so hard for you to be yourself. I want you to be your dear old self, father! Your dear self, that I love"——

Dolly's voice was choked, and she sobbed. Mr. Copley was not quite insensible. He was silent a good while, hearing her sobs, and then he groaned; a groan partly of real feeling, partly, I am afraid, of desire to have the scene ended; the embarrassment and the difficulty disposed of and behind him. But he thought it had been an expression of deeper feeling solely.

"I'll do anything you like, my dear child," he said. "Only stop crying. You break my heart."

"Father, will you really do something if I ask you?"

"Anything! Only stop crying so."

"Then, father, write and sign it, that you will not ever touch wine. Rupert and I have taken such a pledge already."

"What is the use of writing and signing? I don't see. A man can let it alone without that."

"He can, if he wants to let it alone; but if he is very much tempted, then the pledge is a help."

"What did you and Rupert do such a thing as that for?"

"I wanted to save him."

"Make him take the pledge, then. Why you?"

"How could I ask him to do what I would not do myself? But I've done it, father; now will you join us?"

"Pshaw!" said Mr. Copley, displeased. "Now you have incapacitated yourself from appearing as others do in society. How would you refuse, if you were asked to drink wine with somebody at a dinner-table?"

"Very easily. I should think all women would refuse," said Dolly. "Father, will you join us, and let us all be unfashionable and happy together?"

"Did St. Leger pledge himself?"

"I have not asked him."

"Well, I will if he will."

"For him, father, and not for me?" said Dolly.

"Ask him," said Mr. Copley. "I'll do as he does."

"Father, you might set an example to him."

"I'll let him set the example for me," said Mr. Copley rising. And Dolly could get no further.

But it was settled that they were to leave Venice. What was to be gained by this step Dolly did not quite know; yet it was a step, that was something. It was something, too, to get out of the neighbourhood of that wine-shop, of which Dolly thought with horror. What might await them in Rome she did not know; at least the bonds of habit in connection with a particular locality would be broken. And Venice was grown odious to her.



CHAPTER XXIV.

PAST GREATNESS.

They went to Rome.

Dolly had little comfort from her conversation with her father. She turned over in her mind his offer to quit wine if St. Leger would do the same. St. Leger would not give any such pledge, Dolly was very clearly aware; except, indeed, she paid him for it with another pledge on her part. With such a bribe she believed he would do it, or anything else that might be asked of him. Smooth and quiet as the young gentleman was outwardly, he had a power of self-will; as was shown by his persistence in following her. Dolly was obliged to confess that his passion was true and strong. If she would have him, no doubt, at least she believed there was no doubt, Lawrence would agree to be unfashionable and drink no more wine to the day of his death for her sake. If he agreed to that, her father would agree to it; both of them would be saved from that danger. Dolly pondered. Ought she to pay the price? Should she sacrifice herself, and be the wife of a rich banker, and therewith keep her father and all of them from ruin? Very soberly Dolly turned the whole thing over in her mind; back and forward; and always she was certain on one point,—that she did not want to be Lawrence's wife; and to her simple, childlike perceptions another thing also seemed clear; that it is a bad way to escape one wrong by doing another. She always brought up with that. And so, she could not venture and did not venture to attack Lawrence on the wine question. She knew it would be in vain.

Meanwhile, they were in Rome. Two of the gentlemen being skilled travellers, they had presently secured a very tolerable apartment; not in the best situation, indeed, but so neither was it of the most expensive sort; and clubbing their resources, were arranged comfortably enough to feel quite at home. And immediately Dolly began to use her advantage and see Rome. Mrs. Copley had no curiosity to see anything; all her wish was to sit at her window or by her fire and talk to her husband; and as Mr. Copley shared her lack of enterprise and something withheld him from seeking either gambling or drinking-shops, Dolly could go out with an easy mind, and give herself undividedly to the intense enjoyment of the place and the time. Yes, undividedly; for she was eighteen, and at eighteen one has a power of, for a time, throwing off trouble. Trouble was on her, she knew; and, nevertheless, when Dolly found herself in the streets of Rome, or in presence of its wonders of art or marvels of antiquity, she and trouble parted company. She forgot all but the present; or even if she did not forget, she disregarded. Her spirit took a momentary leap above all that ordinarily held it down, and revelled, and rejoiced, and expanded, and rose into a region of pure exquisite life. Rupert, who always accompanied her, was rather opening the eyes of his mind, and opening them very wide indeed, and as is the case with eyes newly opened, not seeing very clearly; yet taking great pleasure in what he did see. St. Leger, her other companion, had a certain delight in seeing Dolly's enjoyment; for himself, alas! it was too plain that art said little to him, and antiquity nothing.

One afternoon, when they had been perhaps a week in Rome, Dolly declared her intention of taking Rupert to the Museo Capitolino.

"You were there the day before yesterday," St. Leger remarked, rousing himself from a comfortable position and a magazine.

"Yes, thank you; and now I am going to do for Mr. Babbage what you did for me; introduce him to a scene of delights. You know, one should always pass on a good thing that one has received."

"Don't you want me?"

"No, indeed! I wouldn't bore you to that extent."

"But you will allow me, for my own pleasure," said Lawrence, getting up.

"No, I will not. You have done your part, as far as that museum is concerned; and besides, I have heard that a lady must not dance too many dances with one gentleman. It is Mr. Babbage's turn."

And with a merry little nod of her head, and smile at the irresolute St. Leger, Dolly went off. Rupert was generally of the party when they went sight-seeing, but it had happened that it was not the case when the visit to the Capitoline Museum had been made.

"You are not going to this place for my sake?" Rupert said as Dolly hurried along.

"For your sake, and for my sake," she answered. "I was there for about two minutes, and I should like two days. O Rome, Rome! I never saw anything like Rome."

"Why?" said Rupert. "It hasn't got hold of me so."

"Wait, and it will. I seem to be touching the history of the world here, till I don't know whereabouts in the ages I am. Is this the nineteenth century?—Here we are."

Half an hour later, the two found themselves in the Hall of the Emperors.

"Do you know Roman history, Rupert?"

"A little. Not much. Not far down, you see. I know about Romulus and Remus."

"Then you know more than anybody else knows. That's a myth. Look here. Let us begin at the beginning. Do you know this personage?"

"Julius Caesar? Yes. I have read about him."

"Did you ever read Plutarch's Lives? They used to be my delight when I was a little girl. I was very fond of Julius Caesar then. I know better now. But I am glad to see him."

"Why, wasn't he a great man?"

"Very. So the world says. I have come to perceive, Rupert, that that don't mean much."

"Why not? I thought the world was apt to be right."

"In some things. No doubt this man might have been a very great man; he had power; but what good did he do to the world? He just worked for himself. I tell you what the Bible says, Rupert; 'The things which are highly esteemed among men, are abomination in the sight of God.' Look, and you will see it is so."

"If you go by that—— Who is this next man? Augustus. He was the first Roman emperor, wasn't he?"

"And all around here are ranged his successors. What a set they were! and they look like it."

"How do you know they are likenesses?"

"Know from coins. Do you know, almost all these men, the emperors, died a violent death? Murdered, or else they killed themselves. That speaks, don't it, for the beauty and beneficence of their reigns, and the loveliness of their characters?"

"I don't know them very well. Some of them were good men, weren't they?"

"See here, Nos. 11 and 12. Here are Caligula and Claudius. Caligula was murdered. Then Claudius was poisoned by his wife Agrippina; there she is, No. 14. She was killed by her son Nero; and Nero killed himself; and No. 13, there is another wife of Claudius whom he killed before he married Agrippina; and here, No. 17, was a wife of Nero whom he killed by a kick. And that is the way, my dear Rupert, they went on. Don't you wish you had belonged to the Imperial family? There's greatness for you!"

"But there were some really great ones, weren't there? Which are they?"

"Well, let us see. Come on. Here is Trajan. He was not a brute; he was a philosopher and a sceptic. He was quite a distinguished man in the arts of war and peace. But he ordered that the profession of Christianity should be punished with death. He legalised all succeeding persecutions, by his calm enactments. Do you think he was a great man in the sight of God?"

"Were the Christians persecuted in his reign?"

"Certainly. In Asia Minor, under the good governor Pliny. Simon the son of Cleophas was crucified at that time."

"Perhaps Trajan did not know any better."

"He might have known better, though. Ignorance is no plea that will stand, when people have the means of knowledge. But come on. Here is Marcus Aurelius; here, Rupert, Nos. 37 and 38. He was what the world calls a very great man. He was cultivated, and wise, and strong, a great governor, and for a heathen a good man; and how he treated the Christians! East and west, and at Rome here itself, how they were sought out and tortured and killed! What do you think the Lord thinks of such a great man as that? Remember the Bible says of His people, 'He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of His eye.' What do you think the Lord thought of Marcus Aurelius' greatness? Look here, Rupert—here is Decius, and here is Diocletian."

"Were they persecutors too?"

"Great. It is so strange to look at their faces here, in this museum, after so many centuries. I suppose they will stand here, maybe, till the end of the world. Come away—we have been so long in this gallery we have not left time enough for the other rooms."

They went to the Hall of the Gladiator; and there Dolly studied the figure which gives name to the place, with a kind of rapt intensity. She described to her companion the meaning of the marble; but it was not the same thing to them both. Dolly was lost in delighted contemplation. Rupert looked on with a kind of incredulous scorn.

"You don't care for it?" she said suddenly, catching a sight of his face.

"What's it good for?" said Rupert. "This ain't a likeness of anybody, is it?"

"It is a likeness of a great many people. Hundreds and hundreds died in such fashion as that, for the pleasure of the Roman people."

"Well, would it have been any satisfaction to you to see it?"

"Why, no! I hope not."

"Then why do you like to see it here now?"

"I don't! this is not reality, but an image."

"I can't see why you should like to look at the image, when you couldn't bear the reality."

"Why, Rupert"—— Dolly began, but her further words were cut off.

"Met again!" said a soft voice. "You here! we did not know you would be in Rome so soon."

"Dolly!" exclaimed Christina, who followed her mother. "That's delightful. Dolly Copley in Rome! and in the Museo Capitolino. Who is with you?"

"We are all here," said Dolly, smiling.

"Yes, yes, in Rome, of course; but you are not in the museum alone?"

Dolly presented Mr. Babbage.

"And how is your mother?" Mrs. Thayer went on. "Better! I am so glad. I thought she would be better in Italy. And what have you done with your handsome cavaliero servente—Mr. St. Leger?"

"I left him at home with a magazine, in which I think there was a story," said Dolly.

"Impossible! his gallantry allowed you to come alone?"

"Not his gallantry, but perhaps his sense of weakness," Dolly answered.

"Of weakness, my dear? Is he a weak young man? He does not look it."

"Very good muscular power, I daresay; but when we talk of power of will, you know 'weakness' is relative. I forbade him, and he did not dare to come."

"You forbade him! and he obeyed? But, Christina, I do not think you have Mr. Shubrick in such training as that. Would he obey, if you gave him orders?"

"Probably the relations are different," said Dolly, obliging herself to keep a grave face. "I am in a happy independence of Mr. St. Leger which allows me to command him."

"Independence!" said Mrs. Thayer, with an air half curious, half confounded, which was a severe trial to Dolly's risible muscles. "I know young ladies are very independent in these days—I don't know whether it is a change for the better or not—but I do not think Christina would boast of her independence of her knight-errant."

"No," said Dolly. "The cases are different—as I said. Mr. St. Leger does not stand in that particular relation to me."

"Doesn't he? But, my dear, I hope you haven't quarrelled?"

"Not at all," said Dolly. "We do not like each other well enough to quarrel."

"But he struck me as a most delightful young man."

"I believe he generally makes that impression."

"I used to know his father," said Mrs. Thayer. "He was a sad flirt. I know, you see, my dear, because I was one myself. I am glad Christina does not take after me. But I used to think it was great fun. Is Mr. St. Leger anything of a flirt?"

"I have had no opportunity of knowing, ma'am," said Dolly gravely.

"Well, you will bring him to see us? You are all coming to make us a visit at our villa, at Sorrento; and Mr. Shubrick is coming; Christina wants to show him to you; you know a girl is always proud of her conquests; and then we will go everywhere and make you see everything. You have just no notion how delightful it is at Sorrento in the spring and summer. It's Paradise!"

"But you are coming first to spend Christmas with me, Dolly," said her friend, who until now had hardly been able to get in a word. "I have five thousand things to talk to you about. My sailor friend has promised to be here too, if he can, and his ship is in the Mediterranean somewhere, so I guess he can; and I want you to see him. Come and spend Christmas Eve with me—do! and then we shall have a chance to talk before he comes. Of course there would be no chance after," she added with a confident smile.

Dolly was not much in a mood for visiting, and scantly inclined to mix in the joyous circle which must be breathing so different an atmosphere from her own. She doubted besides whether she could leave her watch and ward for so long a time as a night and a day. Yet it was pleasant to see Christina, and the opportunity to talk over old times was tempting; and her friend's instances were very urgent. Dolly at last gave a conditional assent; and they parted; Dolly and Rupert taking the way home.

"Is that lady a friend of yours?" Rupert enquired.

"The daughter; not the mother."

"The old lady, I meant. She has a mind to know all about us."

"Why?"

"She asked me about five hundred and fifty questions, after she quitted you."

"What did you tell her?"

"I told her what she knew before," said Rupert, chuckling. "Her stock of knowledge hasn't grown very much, I guess, by all she got out of me. But she tried."

Dolly was silent. After a short pause, Rupert spoke again in quite another tone.

"Miss Dolly, you've put me in a sort of a puzzle. You said a little while ago, or you spoke as if you thought, that all those grand old Roman emperors were not after all great men. Then, if they were not great, what's a fellow to try for? If a common fellow does his best, he will not get to the hundredth or the thousandth part of what those men did. Yet you say they were not great. What's the use of my trying, for instance, to do anything, or be anything?"

"What did they do, Rupert?"

"Well, you seem to say, nothing! But don't you come to Rome to admire what they did?"

"Some of the things they did, or made. But stand still here, Rupert, and look. Do you see the Rome of the Caesars? You see an arch here and a theatre there; but the city of those days is buried. It is under our feet. The great works of art here, those that were done in their day, were not done by them. Do you think it is any good to one of those old emperors in the other world—take the best of them—is it any good to him now that he had some of these splendid buildings erected, or marbles carved? Or that his armies conquered the world, and his government held order wherever his arms went? If he is happy in the presence of God, is it anything to him, now, that we look back and admire his work?—and if he is unhappy, banished that Presence, is it anything to him then?"

"Well, what is greatness then?" said Rupert. "What is worth a man's trying for, if these greatest things are worth nothing?"

"I do not think anything is really great or worth while," said Dolly, "except those things that God likes."

"You come back to religion," said Rupert. "I did not mean religion. What are those things?"

"I do not think anything is worth trying for, Rupert, except the things that will last."

"What things will last?" said he half impatiently.

"Look here," said Dolly. "Step a little this way. Do you see the Colosseum over yonder? Who do you think will remember, and do remember, that with most pleasure; Vespasian and Titus who built it, or the Christians who gave themselves to the lions there for Christ's sake?"

"Yes," said Rupert, "of course; but that isn't the thing. There are no lions here now."

"There are lions of another sort," said Dolly, standing still and with her eyes fixed upon the wonderful old pile in the distance. "There is always work to be done for God, Rupert, and dangers or difficulties to be faced; and to the people who face any lions for His sake, there is a promise of praise and honour and blessing that will last for ever."

"Then you would make all a man's work to be work for God?" said Rupert, not satisfied with this view of the question. "What is to become of all the rest of the things that are to be done in the world?"

"There ought not to be anything else done in the world," said Dolly, laughing, as she turned and began to walk on again. "It ought all to be done for Him. Merchants ought to make money for His service; and lawyers ought to strive to bring God's order between man and man, and justice to every one, and that never wrong should be done or oppression exercised by anybody. 'Break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free.' And soldiers ought to fight for no other reason but to protect weaker people from violence and wrong. And so on of everything else. And, Rupert, God has promised a city, of His own preparing, for His people; it will be a place of delights; and I am thinking of that word,—'Blessed are they that do His commandments; that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.' I don't believe anybody that is left outside will think much of what we call greatness in that day."

"Why, the world wouldn't be the world, at that rate," cried Rupert.

"Think it wouldn't be altered for the better?"

"But a few people can't make it like that."

"Suppose they make only a very little piece of it like that?—But then comes the end, Rupert, and the King's 'Well done!'"

"Then you wouldn't have a man make as much as he can of himself," said Rupert after a dissatisfied pause.

"Certainly I would."

"What use?"

"Oh, to be a better servant to his Master, the best he possibly can; and to do more work for Him; the most he can do."

"It seems to me, Miss Dolly, if you are right, pretty much all the rest of the world are wrong."

"Yes, Rupert; don't you remember the Bible says that the wrong way is the broad way, where almost all the people go?"

Rupert's meditations this time held him till they got home.

The days that intervened before Christmas were filled full with delightful business. Dolly had her anxieties, it is true; but she was in Rome. What could stand against the witchery of the enchantress city? Anxieties fell into the background; and with all the healthy, elastic spring of her young years Dolly gave herself to the Present and the Past, and rejoiced, hour by hour and step by step, in what the Present and the Past opened up to her. True, her father and mother hardly shared in her pleasure; Mr. Copley's taste was blunted, I fear, for all noble enjoyment; and Mrs. Copley cared mainly to be comfortable in her home quarters, and to go out now and then where the motley world of fashion and of sight-seeing did most congregate. Especially she liked to go to the Pincian Hill Sunday afternoon, and watch the indescribable concourse of people of all nationalities which is there to be seen at that time. But there Dolly would not go.

"It is very absurd of you, Dolly!" cried her mother, greatly disappointed; for she had a pride in seeing the universal attention which was drawn to Dolly in every public place. "What harm should there be in looking at the beautiful view and hearing music? we are not going to do anything."

"It's the Lord's day, mother," said Dolly, looking up at her sorrowfully.

"You went to church this morning all right," her mother said. "There is no church for you to go to at this time of day, that I know of; and if there were, I should think it very ridiculous to go again. If you want to think, you could think about good things, I should hope, on the Pincian. What is there to hinder you?"

"Only everything I should see and hear, mother."

"Hinder you from thinking about good things!"

"Hinder me from thinking about anything," said Dolly, laughing a little.

"Seriously, Miss Dolly," said Lawrence, who stood by, hat in hand, ready to go; the Pincian Hill Sunday evening was something he quite approved of;—"seriously, do you think there is anything wrong in sitting up there for an hour or two, and seeing the beautiful sunset colours, and hearing the music?"

"She's a little Puritan," said her father; "and the Puritans were always an obstinate set, Lawrence; always, and in every nation and people. I wonder why the two things should go together."

"What two things, father?"

"What you call Puritanism and obstinacy."

"I suppose because those you call Puritans love the truth," said Dolly; "and so hold to it."

"And do you not think other people, who are not Puritans, also love the truth, Miss Dolly?" Lawrence asked.

"I don't think anybody loves the truth he disobeys," Dolly said with a gentle shake of her head.

"There!" said her mother. "There's Dolly all over. She is right, and nobody else is right. I wonder what she supposes is to become of all the rest of the world! Everybody in Rome will be on the Pincian to-night except Dolly Copley. And every other mother but me will have her daughter with her."

In answer to which Dolly kissed her, pulled the strings of her bonnet into a prettier bow, and looked at her with sweet, shining eyes, which said as plainly as possible without words that Mrs. Copley knew better. The party went off, nevertheless; and Lawrence, lingering till the others had turned their backs, held out his hand to Dolly.

"Will you tell me," said he, "as a favour, what you think is the harm of what we are doing?"

"You are just robbing the King of heaven and earth," Dolly answered gravely.

"Robbing! Of what?"

"Of time which He says is His, and of honour which He says ought to be His."

"How?"

"'The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.'"

"This is not the seventh; it is the first."

"Quibbling, Mr. St. Leger. It is not the seventh from Monday, but it is the seventh from Sunday; it is the one day set apart from the seven."

"And what ought we to do with it? Sabbath means rest, does it not? What are we going to do but rest up there on the Pincian? only rest most delightfully. You will not rest so here."

"I suppose your bodies will rest," said Dolly. "Your minds will have most uncommon powers of abstraction if they do."

"But you are putting yourself out of the world, Dolly."

"I mean it," said she with a little nod at him. "The Lord's people are not of the world, Mr. St. Leger; and the world does not like their ways. Never did."

"I wonder if all Puritans are as quaint as you," said he, kissing the hand he held. But then he went off to the Pincian.

And there, surely, was a most wonderful, rich, and varied scene; a concourse of people of all characters and nationalities—except the small party in the world which Dolly represented; a kaleidoscope view of figures and costumes, classes and callings, most picturesque, most diversified, most changeful. There were the Thayers, amongst others; and as they joined company with the Copley party, of course Mrs. Copley's pleasure was greatly increased; for in a crowd it is always pleasant to know somebody. Mr. Copley knew several people. Mrs. Thayer had leisure to tell and ask whatever she had a mind with Mrs. Copley, and to improve her acquaintance with Mr. St. Leger; who on his part managed to get some conversation with the beautiful Christina. It was a distinction to be talking to such a beauty, and he felt it so; and Christina on her part was not insensible to the fact that the young man was himself very handsome, and unexceptionably well dressed, and the heir to many thousands; therefore a person of importance. The time on the Pincian Hill that evening was very pleasantly spent; and so Mrs. Copley told her daughter on their return.

"Mrs. Thayer said she was very sorry not to see you," Mrs. Copley added.

"I am much obliged to her."

"You are not obliged to her at all, for she didn't mean it. That's what you get by staying behind."

"What?" said Dolly, dimpling up.

"That woman had it all her own way; talked to Mr. St. Leger, and let him talk to her daughter. You see, Dolly, Christina is very handsome when you are not by."

"Mother, she is at any time. She's beautiful. You must not set me up in comparison with her."

"Well, she's engaged," said Mrs. Copley. "I wish you were. You let everything hang by the eyelids, Dolly; and some fine morning what you look for won't be there."



CHAPTER XXV.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Christmas Eve came, and Rupert attended Dolly to the Piazza di Spagna, where her friends had apartments in a great hotel. Dolly was quite prepared to enjoy herself; the varied delights of the foregoing days had lifted her out of the quiet, patient mood of watchful endurance which of late had been chronic with her, and her spirits were in a flow and stir more fitted to her eighteen years. She was going through the streets of Rome! the forms of the ages rose before her mind's eye continually, and before her bodily eye appeared here and there tokens and remains which were like the crumblings of those ages; tangible proofs that once they had been, and that Rome was still Rome. Dolly drew breaths of pleasure as she and Rupert walked along.

"You are going to stay all night?" said Rupert.

"Yes, they want me."

"And they have asked nobody but you?" said Rupert, who was not conventional.

"They wanted nobody but me. It is not a party; it is my old school-friend only, who wants to show me her future husband."

Rupert grunted his intelligence, and at the same time his mystification. "What for?" he asked. And Dolly laughed.

"I don't know! It is natural, I suppose, to some people. Here we are. Good night."

The Thayers were very well lodged indeed. Dolly found herself in really charming rooms, well furnished and well lighted. She was joyfully received, and Christina led her forthwith through saloon and dining-room to the sanctuary of her own chamber. A certain feeling of contrast began to fall upon Dolly already, Christina looked so very fresh and fair and well kept; the lightest veil of anxiety had never shadowed her bloom; the most remote cloud of embarrassment or need had never risen on her horizon. Careless, happy, secure, her mind knew no burden. It made Dolly feel the pressure of her own; and yet she was glad, for a little, to get into this atmosphere of peace and confidence, and enjoy it even by the contrast. Christina's room looked like a curiosity shop. It was littered with recent purchases; all sorts of pretty things, useful and useless.

"One cannot help buying," she said, excusing herself. "I see something at every step that I want; and I must get it when I see it, or I may never see it again, you know. It is great fun, but sometimes I almost get tired. Here, dear, I can lay your things here. Isn't my fire nice? Now sit down and warm yourself. It's too delightful to have you! It is like a bit of home, and a bit of old times. Those old school days were pleasant?"

"Very pleasant!" said Dolly, sitting down and looking into the queer but bright fire of small sticks which burned in Christina's chimney. "Very pleasant! I was with my dear Aunt Hal, in Philadelphia."

"But these days are better, Dolly," Miss Thayer went on. "That wasn't much compared to this."

"I don't know," said Dolly. "There was no care in those times."

"Care?" exclaimed Christina, as if she did not know the meaning of the word. "What care have you, Dolly? I have none, except the care to make my money buy all I want—which it won't, so I may as well make up my mind to it, and I do. What have you been getting in Rome?"

"Oh, more pleasure than I knew so many days could hold," said Dolly, laying some of the sticks of the fire straight.

"Isn't it wonderful? I think there's nothing like Rome. Unless, perhaps, Paris."

"Paris!" said Dolly. "What's at Paris?"

"Ah, you don't know it, or you wouldn't ask! Everything, my dear. Rome has a good deal, certainly, but Paris has everything. Now tell me,—are you engaged?"

"I? No. Of course not."

"I don't see why it's of course. Most people are at one time or another; and I didn't know but your time had come."

"No," said Dolly. "Neither the time nor the man. I've come to hear about yours."

"If he's good, you'll see him; the man, I mean. He promised to be with us at Christmas, if he could; and he always keeps his promises."

"That's a good thing," said Dolly. .

"Ye-s," said Christina, "that is, of course, a good thing. One likes to have promises kept. But it is possible to have too much of a good thing."

"Not of keeping promises!" said Dolly in unfeigned astonishment.

"I don't know," said Christina. "Sandie is so fixed in everything; he holds to his opinions and his promises and his expectations; and he holds a trifle too fast."

"He has a right to hold to his expectations, surely," said Dolly, laughing.

"Not too much," said Christina. "He has no right to expect everybody to keep their promises as precisely as he does his! People aren't made alike."

"No; but honour is honour."

"Come, now, Dolly," said Christina laughing in her turn, "you are another! You are just a little bit precise, like my Sandie. You cannot make all the world alike, if you try; and he can't."

"I am not going to try, and I think it would be a very stupid world if I could do it; but nobody ought to raise expectations he is not prepared to gratify."

"Like a sentence out of a book!" cried Christina. "But Sandie is the most unchangeable person; he will not take any views of anything but the views he has always taken; he is as fixed as the rock of Gibraltar, and almost as distinct and detached from the rest of the world."

"And don't you like that?"

"No; confess I do not. I'd like him to come down a little from his high place and mix with the rest of us mortals."

"What expectations does he indulge which you are not willing to meet?"

"That's the very thing!" cried Christina, in her turn stooping to arrange the little sticks and pile more on; "he is unreasonable."

"How?"

"Wants me to marry him."

"Is that unreasonable?"

"Yes! till things are ready for such a step, and I am ready."

"What things?"

"Dolly, he is only the first officer of his ship. He was distinguished in the last war, and he has the prospect of promotion. I don't want to marry him till he is a captain."

"Why?" said Dolly.

"Why?—Don't you understand? He would have a better position then, and better pay; and could give me a better time generally; and mamma thinks we ought to wait. And I like waiting. It's better fun, I do think, to be engaged than to be married. I know I shouldn't have my head near so much if I was married to Sandie. I do just as I like now; for mamma and I are always of a mind."

"And are not you and Mr. Shubrick of a mind?"

"Not about this," said Christina, getting up from the hearth, and laughing.

"Pray, if one may ask, how long have you and he been waiting already?"

"Oh, he thinks it is a great while; but what is the harm of waiting?"

"Well, how long is it, Christina?"

"Dolly, we were engaged very young. It was before I left school; one summer when I was home for the vacation. I was sixteen; that is four years ago, and more."

"Four years!" cried Dolly.

"Yes. Of course we were too young then to think of marrying. He was home on furlough, and I was home for the vacation; and our houses were near together; and so we made it up. His people were not very well off, but mine were; so there was nothing in the way, and nobody objected much; only mother said we must wait."

"What are you waiting for now, Christina?"

"I told you. I am in no hurry, for my part. I want Sandie to get his ship; and in the meanwhile it is just as nice to be as we are. We see each other when we can; and Italy is Italy; and I am very contented. Unfortunately, Sandie isn't."

"How long do you propose to go on waiting?"

"I don't know. Oh, I don't know! and I don't care. What is the harm of waiting?"

"That depends on what you promise yourselves in being married."

"Dolly," said Christina thoughtfully, "I don't promise myself anything much better than I have got now. If Sandie would only be content, I could go on so for ever."

"And not be married?"

"Besides, Dolly, I don't want to keep house in a small way. I do not! and if I married a lieutenant in the navy, I couldn't do anything else. You see, Sandie would not live upon papa's money; though papa would do anything for me; but Sandie won't; and on his means we should live on a very small scale indeed."

"But you would have enough?"

"Enough for what? We should have enough to eat. But, Dolly, I do not like to have to think of economy. I have never been used to it. Look at my room; see the things I have got together these last few days. Look here—this is a ring I want you to wear for me. Isn't it delicious? It is as old as the best time of cameo-cutting, they say, but I do not remember when that was; it's rather large for a lady's ring, but it is an undoubted beauty. Jupiter's eagle, with the thunderbolts. Just look at the plumage of the bird,—and its fierce eye!"

Dolly was greatly delighted. Of all the pretty things she had seen during the weeks past, she had bought nothing, save one or two bits for her mother. This gift was vastly more to Dolly than Christina could imagine. She had so literally everything she wanted, that no further acquisition could give her great pleasure. It lacked the enhancement of difficulty and rarity. I suppose the ring was more to Dolly than her whole roomful beside to Christina. It was in truth a very exquisite cameo. Dolly put it on her finger and looked at it in different lights, and admired it and enjoyed it hugely; while at the same time it gave an odd grace of setting-off to her simple dress. Dolly was in a plain black silk, with no adornment at all, until she put the ring on. Unless her quaint old cable chain could be called such. That Dolly always wore. She was a sweet, quaint figure, illuminated by the firelight, as Christina observed her; girlish and graceful, with a fair face and beautiful hair; the sober dress and the true womanly eyes making a certain hidden harmony, and the cameo setting a seal of daintiness and rareness to the whole. Christina was seized with admiration that had a good deal of respect blended with it of a sudden.

"You don't agree with me, Dolly," she said after a little, when Dolly's thanks and the beauty of the ring had been sufficiently discussed, and a pause had brought the thoughts of both back to the former subject.

"What do you want, Christina?"

"I just want to be happy and comfortable," said the girl, "as I always have been. I don't want to come down to pinching. Is that unreasonable?"

"You would not have to pinch, Christina."

"Yes, I should; to live like the rest of the world."

"Are you obliged to do that?"

"Live like the rest of the world? Yes, or be out of the world."

"I thought you were a Christian," said Dolly softly.

"A Christian! Yes, so I am. What has that got to do with it?"

"A good deal, I should say. Tiny, you cannot follow Christ and be like the world."

"I don't want to be like the world, in bad things; but I mean things that are not bad. One must be like the world in some ways, if one can. Don't you set up for being any better than me, Dolly, for I won't stand it; we are all really just alike."

"The world and Christians?"

"Yes; in some things."

"Ways of living?"

"Yes,—in some ways."

"Christina, did you use to think so in old times?"

"I was young then; I did not know the world. You have got to do as the world do, in a measure, Dolly."

Dolly was silent a bit. She too, on her part, observed her friend. Fair and handsome she was; very handsome; with the placid luxuriance of nature which has never known shocks or adverse weather. Dolly felt the contrast which Christina had also felt, but Dolly went deeper into it. She and her friend had drifted apart, not in regard for each other, but in life and character; and Dolly involuntarily compared their experiences. Trouble to Christina was a word of unknown meaning; to herself it was become daily bread. Had that made the difference? Christina was living on the surface of things; skimming a smooth sea in a gilded gondola; shelter and adornment were all about her life, and plenty within. Dolly had been, as it were, cast into the waves and was struggling with them; now lifted on a high crest, and now brought down to the bottom. Was that how she had learned to know that there were wonderful things of preciousness and beauty at the bottom of the sea? and must one perhaps be tossed by the storm to find out the value and the power of the hand that helps? It did smite Dolly with a kind of pain, the sense of Christina's sheltered position and security; the thought of the father's arms that were a harbour for her, the guardianship that came between her and all the roughness of the world. And yet, Dolly along with the bitterness of this, was tasting also something else which did not enter Christina's cup of life; a rarer sweetness, which she would not have exchanged for Christina's whole draught. She had found jewels more precious at the depth of the sea than ever Christina could pick up in her pleasure sail along shore. Christina, with all her luxury, was missing something, and in danger of losing more. Dolly resolved to speak.

"Do you know, Tiny," she said, "if I were Mr. Shubrick, I should not be satisfied?"

"Why not?" said Christina carelessly.

"Why, you are preferring the world to him."

"I am not! No such thing, Dolly. I love him dearly."

"By your own showing, you love—what shall I say?—luxuries and position, more."

"I only want to wait a little."

"And, Christina—I don't believe God likes it."

"Likes what?"

"Your wanting to do as the world do."

"How do you know I do?"

"You said so."

"I like to have a nice house, and servants enough, and furniture to please me, and means to entertain my friends; and who doesn't? That's all I ask for."

"And to do what everybody else does."

"Yes," said Christina smiling. "Who don't?"

"You were on the Pincian Hill Sunday afternoon."

"Yes," said Christina suddenly, looking up. "Why not? Why weren't you there?"

"If you will read the last two verses of the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah, you will know."

"I can't read in this light," said Christina, looking round the room, "and I don't know just where I have laid my Bible. Everybody goes to the Pincian. It's no harm."

"Would Mr. Shubrick go?"

"Who told you he wouldn't?" said Christina. "I declare, if you are going to help him in his crotchets, I won't let you see much of him! Sandie!—he's just an unmanageable, unreasonable bit of downrightness.—And uprightness," she added, laughing. "Dolly, he can have his own way aboard ship; but in the world one can't get along so. One must conform a little. One must."