have seen Venice enough to content me. It is the wettest place I
was ever in my life."

"Why, it rains, mother. Any place is wet when it rains."

"This would be wet at all times. I think the ground must have sunk,
Dolly; people would never have built in the water so. The ground must
have sunk."

"No, mother; I guess not. It has been always just so."

"What made them build here then, when there is all the earth beside?
What did they take to the water for? And what are the houses standing
on, any way?"

"Islands, mother, between which these canals run. I told you before."

"I should think the people hadn't any sense."

And nothing would tempt Mrs. Copley out that day. Of course Dolly must
stay at home too, though she would most gladly have gone about through
the rainy, silent city, in one of those silent gondolas, and feed her
eyes at every step. However, she made herself and made her mother as
comfortable as she could; got out her painting and worked at Rupert's
portrait, which was so successful that Lawrence begged she would begin
upon him at once.

"You know the conditions," she said.

"I accept them. Finish one of me so good as that, and I will send it to
my mother and ask her what she will give for it."

"But not tell her?"----

"Certainly not."

"I find," said Dolly slowly, "that it is a very great compliment for a
lady to paint a gentleman's likeness."

"Why?"

"She has to give so much attention to the lines of his face. I
shouldn't like to paint some people. But I'll do anybody, for a
consideration."

"Your words are not flattering," said Lawrence, "even if your actions
are."

"No," said Dolly. "Compliments are not in my way."

And though she made a beginning upon St. Leger's picture, and studied
the lines of his face accordingly, he did not feel flattered. Dolly's
clear, intelligent eyes looked at him as steadily and as unmovedly as
if he had been a Titian.

The next day brought a change. If Dolly had watched from her balcony
with interest the day before, now she was breathless with what she
found. The sun was shining bright, a breeze was rippling the waters of
the lagoon, and gently fluttering a sail and a streamer here and there;
the beautiful water was enlivened with vessels of all kinds and of many
lands, black gondolas darted about; and the buildings lining the shores
of the lagoon stood to view in their beauty and magnificence and
variety before Dolly's eye; the Doge's palace, here