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

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

"What? Philosophy? Stoicism?"

"No," said Dolly softly.

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

"Yes," said Dolly in the same way.

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

"No," said Dolly slowly; "and I cannot show it to you, either, Mr. St.
Leger. It is like the golden water in the story in the Arabian Nights,
which was at the top of a hill, and people went up the hill to get it;
but on the way so many strange voices sounded in their ears that they
were tempted to look round; and if they looked round they were turned
to stone. So the way was marked with stones."

"And nobody got the golden water?"

"Yes. At last one went up, who being forewarned, stopped her ears and
never looked round. She got to the top and found the golden water. We
in these times give it another name. It is the water of life."

"What _are_ you talking about, Dolly?" said her mother.

"Must one go up the hill with one's ears stopped _now_, to get the
wonderful water?" Lawrence asked. Dolly nodded.

"And when you have got it--what then?"

"Then you have got it," said Dolly. "It is the water of life. And you
have done with this dry wilderness that mother is complaining of, and
you are recommending."

Lawrence stroked and pulled his moustache, as he might have done if a
lady had spoken to him in polite Sanscrit. Rupert looked gravely out of
the carriage window. Neither answered, and nobody spoke another word,
till Mrs. Copley exclaimed, "There's Leipzig!"

"Looks sort o' peaceful now," remarked Rupert.

"Peaceful? Why, ain't the place quiet?" Mrs. Copley asked anxiously.

"Quiet enough," said Lawrence; "but there was a time, not so long ago,
when it wasn't exactly so."

"When was that?"

"When all the uniforms of Europe were chasing through it," said Dolly;
"some chased and some chasing; when the country was covered with
armies; when a half a million of men or so fought a long battle here,
and the suburbs of Leipzig were full of dead and wounded and sick and
starving; there was not much peace then in or out of the city; though
there was some rejoicing."

"Oh," said Mrs. C