ome?"

"Where's your mother?"

"She is at home. But it is pretty late, father."

"Where's Lawrence?"

"I don't know."

"Where is Rupert, then?"

"He is out, somewhere. Will you go home with me, father?"

"How did you come here?" said Mr. Copley, sitting a little straighter
up, and now beginning to replace or conceal confusion with displeasure.

"I will tell you. I will tell you on the way. But shall we go first,
father? I don't like to stay here."

"Here? What in the name of ten thousand devils---- Who brought you
here?"

"I am alone," said Dolly. "Hadn't we better go, father? and then we can
talk as we go."

At this point a half tipsy Venetian rose, and stepping before the pair
with a low reverence, said something to Mr. Copley, of which Dolly only
understood the words, "La bella signorina;" they made her, however,
draw her scarf forward over her face and brought Mr. Copley to his
feet. He could stand, she saw, but whether he could walk very well was
open to question.

"Signer, signor"---- he began, stammering and incensed. Dolly seized
his arm.

"Shall we go, father? It is so late, and mother might want me. It is
very late, father. Never mind anything, but come!"

Mr. Copley was sufficiently himself to see the necessity; nevertheless,
his score must be paid; and his head was in a bad condition for
reckoning. He brought out some silver from his pocket, and stood
somewhat helplessly looking at it and at the shopman alternately; then
with an awkward movement of his elbow contrived to throw over a glass,
which fell on the floor and broke. Everybody was looking now at the
father and daughter, and words came to Dolly's ears which made her
cheek burn. But she stood calm, self-possessed, waiting with a somewhat
lofty air of maidenly dignity; helped her father solve the reckoning,
paid for the glass, and at last got hold of his arm and drew him away;
after a gentle, grave salutation to the attendant which he answered
profoundly, and which brought everybody in the little shop to his feet
in involuntary admiration and respect. Dolly looked at nobody, yet with
sweet courtesy made a distant sign of acknowledgment to their homage,
and the next minute stood outside the shop in the dark little street
and the mild, still air. I think, even at that minute, with the
strange, startling inappropriateness of license which thoughts give
themselves, there flashed across her a sense of the ironical contrast
of things witho