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 wi