"Limburg? Much better."
"Well--that will do for me."
"There is the famous old palace of the Doges; and the Bridge of Sighs, Mrs. Copley, and the prisons."
"Prisons? You don't think I want to go looking at prisons, do you? Why should I? what's in the prisons?"
"Not much. There has been, first and last, a good deal of misery in them."
"And you think that is pleasant to look at?"
Dolly could not help laughing, and confessed she would like to see the prisons.
"Well, you may go," said her mother. "_I_ don't want to."
Lawrence saw that Dolly's disappointment was like to be bitter.
"I'll tell you what I'll show you, Mrs. Copley, if you'll trust yourself to go out," he said. "I have got a commission from my mother which must take me into one of the wonderful shops of curiosities here.
You never saw such a shop. Old china, of the rarest, and old furniture of the most delightful description, and old curiosities of art out of decayed old palaces, caskets, vases, trinkets, mirrors, and paintings."
Mrs. Copley demurred. "Can we go there in a carriage?"
"No such thing to be had, except a gondola carriage. Come! you will like it. Why, Mrs. Copley, the streets are no broader than very narrow alleys. Carriages would be of no use."
Mrs. Copley demurred, but was tempted. The gondola went better by day than in the night. Once out, Lawrence used his advantage and took the party first to the Place of St. Mark, where he delighted Dolly with a sight of the church. Mrs. Copley was too full of something else to admire churches. She waited and endured, while Dolly's eyes and mind devoured the new feast given to them. They went into the church, up to the roof, and came out to the Piazza again.
"It is odd," said Dolly--"I see it is beautiful; I see it is magnificent; more of both than I can say; and yet, it does not give me the feeling of respect I felt for that old dome at Limburg."
"But," said Lawrence; "that won't do, you know. St. Mark's and Limburg!
that opinion cannot stand. What makes you say so?"
"I don't know," said Dolly. "I have a feeling that the people who built that were more in earnest than the people who built this."
"More in earnest? I beg your pardon!" said Lawrence. "What can you mean? I should say people were in earnest enough here, to judge by the riches of the place. Just see the adornment everywhere, and the splendour."
"Yes," said Dolly, "I see. It is partly that. Though there was adornment, and riches too, at the other place. But the style of it is different. Those grave old towers at Limburg seemed striving up into the sky. I don't see any striving here; in the building, I mean."
"Why, there are pinnacles enough," said Lawrence, in comical inability to fathom her meaning, or answer her.
"Yes," said Dolly; "and domes; but the pinnacles do not strive after anything, and the cupolas seem to settle down like great extinguishers upon everything like striving."
Lawrence laughed, and thought in his own mind that Dolly was a little American, wanting culture, and knowing nothing about architecture.
"What is that great long building?" Mrs. Copley now inquired.
"That, mother?--that is the palace of the Doges. Where is the Bridge of Sighs?"
They went round to look at it from the Ponte della Paglia. Nearer investigation had to be deferred, or, Dolly saw, it would be too literally a bridge of sighs to them that morning. They turned their backs on the splendours, ecclesiastical and secular, of the Place of St. Mark, and proceeded to the store of second-hand curiosities St.
Leger had promised Mrs. Copley, the visit to which could no longer be deferred. Dolly was in a dream of delight all the way. Sunlight on the old palaces, on the bridges over the canals, on the wonderful carvings of marbles, on the strange water-ways; sunlight and colour; ay, and shadow and colour too, for the sun could not get in everywhere. Between the beauty and picturesqueness, and the wealth of old historic legend and story clustering about it everywhere, Dolly's dream was entrancing.
"I do not know half enough about Venice," she remarked by the way.
"Rupert, we must read up. As soon as I can get the books," she added with a laugh.
However, Dolly was susceptible to more than one sort of pleasure; and when the party had reached the Jew's shop, she was perhaps as much pleased though not so much engrossed as her mother. For Mrs. Copley, figuratively speaking, was taken off her feet. This was another thing from the Green vaults and the treasure chamber of Limburg; here the wonders and glories were not unattainable, if one had the means to reach them, that is; and not admiration only, but longing, filled Mrs.
Copley's mind.
"I must have that cabinet," she said. "I suppose we can do nothing till your father comes, Dolly. Do write and tell him to bring plenty of money along, for I shall want some. Such a chance one does not have often in one's life. And that cup! Dolly, I _must_ have that cup; it's beyond everything I ever did see!"
"Mother, look at this ivory carving."
"That's out of my line," said Mrs. Copley with a slight glance. "I should call that good for nothing, now. What's the use of it? But, O Dolly, see this sideboard!"
"You don't want _that_, mother."
"Why don't I? The price is not so very much."
"Think of the expense of getting it home."
"There is no such great difficulty in that. You must write your father, Dolly, to send if he does not come, at once. I should not like to leave these things long. Somebody else might see them."
"Hundreds have seen them already, Mrs. Copley," said Lawrence. "There's time enough."
"I'd rather not trust to that."
"What things do you want, dear mother, seriously? Anything?"
Dolly's voice carried a soft insinuation that her mother's wanting anything there was a delusion; Mrs. Copley flamed out.
"Do you think I am coming into such a place as this, Dolly, and going to let the chance slip? I _must_ have several of these things. I'll tell you. This cup--that isn't much. Now that delicious old china vase--I do not know what china it is, but I'll find out; there is nothing like it, I don't believe, in all Boston. I have chosen that sideboard; _that_ is quite reasonable. You would pay quite as much in Boston, or in London, for a common handsome bit of cabinet-maker's work; while this is--just look at it, Dolly; see these drawers, see these compartments--that's for wine and cordials, you know"----
"We don't want wine and cordials," said Dolly.
"See the convenience and the curiousness of these arrangements; and look at the inlaying, child! It's the loveliest thing I ever saw in my life. Oh, I must have that! And it would be a sin to leave this screen, Dolly. Where ever do you suppose that came from?"
"Eastern work," said Lawrence.
"What eastern work?"
"Impossible for me to say. Might have belonged to the Great Mogul, by the looks of it. Do you admire _that_, Mrs. Copley?"
"How should it come here?"
"Here? the very place!" said Lawrence. "What was there rare or costly in the world, that did not find its way to Venice and into the palaces of the old nobles?"
"But how came it _here?_"
"Into this curiosity shop? The old nobles went to pieces, and their precious things went to auction; and good Master Judas or Master Levi bought them."