drunken musicians, or drunken anything, could be pretty. Odd taste, I
think."

"Then perhaps you didn't like the piece with the fallen angels?" said
Rupert. "That beat me!"

"How could there be peace with the fallen angels?" Mrs. Copley asked
scornfully. At which, however, there was a great burst of laughter. "I
liked best of all the room where the egg was, I believe. But the silver
room was magnificent."

"I liked the ivory better than the silver, mother."

"Who does it all belong to?" Rupert asked.

"The reigning house of Saxony," Lawrence answered.

"The whole of it?"

"Yes."

"And that big picture gallery into the bargain?"

"Yes."

"That's bein' grasping, for any one family to have so much," was
Rupert's conclusion.

"Well, you see," said Lawrence, "we get the good of it, and they have
the care."

"I don't see how we get the good of it," said Mrs. Copley. "I suppose
if I had one of those golden birds, now, with the eyes of diamonds; or
one of those wonderfully chased silver caskets; I should have enough to
keep me in comfort the rest of my life. _I_ think things are queer,
somehow. One single one of those jewels that lie heaped up there, and I
should want for nothing more in this world. And there they lie and
nobody has 'em."

"Do you want for anything now, mother dear?" asked Dolly. She was busy
at a side table, arranging something in a little frame, and did not
look up from her work.

"I should think I did!" was Mrs. Copley's rejoinder. "What don't I
want, from breath up?"

"Here you have had one wish fulfilled to-day--you have seen the Green
vaults--and now we are going to Venice to fulfil another wish--what
would you have?"

"I don't like to think I am going away from here. I like Dresden best
of all the places we've been in. And I would like to go through the
Green vaults--but why they are called so, I cannot conceive--about once
every month. I would _never_ get tired."

"So you would like to settle in Dresden?" said Lawrence. "I don't think
it would be safe to let you go through the Green vaults often, Mrs.
Copley; you would certainly be tempted too much for your principles.
Miss Dolly, we had better get her away. When _do_ we go, by the by?"

Instead of answering, Dolly rose up and brought him something to look
at; a plain little oval frame of black wood within which was a head in
light water colours.

"Mrs. Copley!" exclaimed Lawrence.

"Is it like?"

"Striking! capital. I'm