s, 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