Prev Next

"You never will!"

"I'll try."

"As a favour then?"

Dolly lifted her eyes and smiled at the young man; a smile that utterly and wholly bewitched him. Wilful? yes, he thought it was wilful, but sweet and arch, and bright with hope and purpose and conscious independence; a little defiant, a great deal glad.

"Paint me," said he hastily, "and I'll give you anything you like."

Dolly nodded. "Very well," said she; "then you may talk with mother about our route."

CHAPTER XX.

LIMBURG.

Lawrence did talk with Mrs. Copley; and the result of the discussion was that the decision and management of their movements was finally made over to him. Whether it happened by design or not, the good lady's head was quite confused among the different plans suggested; she could understand nothing of it, she said; and so it all fell into Lawrence's hand. I think that was what he wanted, and that he had views of his own to gratify; for Dolly, who had been engaged with other matters this time, expressed some surprise a day or two after they set out, at finding herself again in Weimar.

"Going back the way we came?" she cried.

"Only for a little distance--a few stages," explained Lawrence; "after that it will be all new."

Dolly did not much care, nor know enough to correct him if he was going wrong; she gave herself up to hopeful enjoyment of the constantly varying new scenes and sights. Mrs. Copley, on the contrary, seemed able to enjoy nothing beyond the shortening of the distance between her and Venice. If she had known how much longer than was necessary Lawrence had made it!

So it happened that they were going one day down a pleasant road which led along a river valley, when an exclamation from Dolly roused her mother out of a half nap. "What is it?" she asked.

"Mother, such a beautiful, beautiful old church! Look--see how it sits up there grandly on the rock."

"Very inconvenient, I should think," said Mrs. Copley, giving a glance out of the carriage window. "I shouldn't think people would like to mount up there often."

"I believe," said Lawrence, also looking out now, "that must be a famous old church--isn't this Limburg?--yes. It is the cathedral at Limburg; a very fine specimen of its style, Miss Dolly, they say."

"What is the style? it's beautiful! Gothic?"

"No,--aw--not exactly. I'm not learned myself, really, in such matters.

I hardly know a good thing when I see it--never studied antiquities, you know; but this is said, I know, to be a very good thing."

"How old? It does not look antiquated."

"Oh, it has been repaired and restored. But it is not Gothic, so it dates further back; what they call the Transition style."

"It is very noble," said Dolly. "Is it as good inside as outside?"

"Don't know, I declare; I suppose so. We might go in and see; let the horses feed and Mrs. Copley take a rest."

This proposition was received with such joy by Dolly that it was at once acted upon. The party sought out an inn, bespoke some luncheon, and arranged for Mrs. Copley's repose. But chancing to hear from Lawrence that the treasures of art and value in the church repositories were both rich and rare, she gave up the promised nap and joined the party who went to the dome. After the Dresden Green vaults, she said, she supposed nothing new could be found; but she would go and see. So they went all together. If Lawrence had guessed to what this chance visit would lead! But that is precisely what people can never know.

Dolly was in a condition of growing delight, which every step increased. Before the great front of the cathedral she stood still and looked up, while Rupert and Mrs. Copley turned their backs and gazed out upon the wide country view. Lawrence, as usual when he could, attended upon Dolly.

"I did not know you were so fond of _this_ kind of thing," he remarked, seeing a little enviously her bright, interested eyes.

"It lifts me almost off my feet!" said Dolly. "My soul don't seem big enough to take it all in. How grand, how grand!--Whose statues are those?"

"On each side?" said Lawrence, who had been collecting information.

"That on the one hand is Heinrich von Isenburg, the founder; and the other is the architect, but nobody knows his name. It is lost. St.

George is on the top there."

"Well," said Dolly, "he is just as well off as if it hadn't been lost!"

"Who? the architect? How do you make that out? He loses all the glory."

"How does he lose it? Do you think," said Dolly, smiling, "he would care, in the other world, to know that you and I liked his work?"

"The other world!" said St. Leger.

"You believe in it, don't you?"

"Yes, certainly; but you speak as if"----

"As if I believed in it!" said Dolly merrily. "You speak as if you didn't."

"I do, I assure you; but what is fame then?"

"Nothing at all," said Dolly.--"Just nothing at all; if you mean people's admiration or applause given when we have gone beyond reach of it."

"Beyond reach of it!" said Lawrence, echoing her words again. "Miss Dolly, do you think it is no use to have one's name honoured by all the world for ages after we have lived?"

"Very good for the world," said Dolly, with a spice of amusement visible again.

"And nothing to the man?"

"What should it be to the man?" said Dolly, seriously enough now. "Mr.

St. Leger, when a man has got beyond this world with its little cares and interests, there will be just one question for him,--whether he has done what God put him here to do; and there will be just one word of praise that he will care about,--the 'Well done!'--if he may have it,--from those lips."

Dolly began quietly, but her colour flushed and her lip trembled as she went on, and her eye sparkled through a sudden veil of tears. Lawrence was silenced by admiration, and almost forgot what they were talking about.

"But don't you think," he began again, as Dolly moved towards the church door, "that the one thing--I mean, the praise here,--will be a sort of guaranty for the praise there?"

"No," said Dolly. "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God--often, often." She pushed open the door and went in. Only a little way in; there she stood still, arrested by all the glory and the beauty that met her eye. The nobleness of form, the wealth of colour, the multiplied richness of both, almost bewildered her at first entering. Pillars, arches, vaultings, niches, galleries, arcades--a wilderness of harmonised form; and every panel and fair space filled with painting. She could not see details yet; she was lost in the greatness of the whole.

"Whom has Mrs. Copley picked up?" asked Lawrence in an undertone. After all, if the architect's posthumous fame had depended on him, it would not have been worth much effort. Mrs. Copley, it may be mentioned, had passed on while Dolly and St. Leger had stood talking outside; and now she was seen in the distance the centre of a group of lively talkers; at least there was one lady who was free to exercise her gifts in that way. Lawrence and Dolly slowly advanced, even Dolly's attention taken for a moment from the church by this extraordinary combination. Yes, Mrs. Copley had found acquaintances. The talker was a lady of about her own age; a gentleman stood near, a little behind was a younger lady, while Rupert balanced the group on the other side.

"There's something uncommon over yonder," whispered Lawrence. "Do you see that blond girl? not blond neither, for her hair isn't; but what an exquisite colour!--and magnificent figure. Do you know her?"

"No," said Dolly,--"I think not. Yet I do. Who can it be? I do not know the one talking to mother."

"And this is she?" the elder lady was saying as Dolly now came up, looking at her with a smiling face. "It's quite delightful to meet friends in the midst of a wilderness so; like the print of a man's foot on the sands in a desert; for really, in the midst of strange people one feels cast away. She's handsomer than you were, Mrs. Copley. My dear, do you know your old schoolfellow?"

Report error

If you found broken links, wrong episode or any other problems in a anime/cartoon, please tell us. We will try to solve them the first time.

Email:

SubmitCancel

Share