oo. I am
tired of going from one place to another. I should like to stay still
somewhere."

"But it is doing you good, mother."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why, Venice, mother."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So you can in the other thing."

"How?" said