"You are, aren't you?"
"What does your father want to do in Naples?"
"I don't know. They all want to stay here a while, you see. And, mother, don't you enjoy this wonderful view?" For their windows commanded the bay.
"I'd rather see Boston harbour, by half."
"Oh, so would I!--on some accounts. But, mother, it is a great thing to see Naples."
"So your father thinks. Men never do know what they want; only it is always something they haven't got."
"We're in Naples, though, mother."
"We shan't be long."
"Well, we don't _want_ to be here long, mother."
"I'd like to be still somewheres. Your father'd as lieve be anywhere else as at home; but I like to see my own fire burn. I don't know as I ever shall again. Unless you'll marry Mr. St. Leger, Dolly. That would bring all right, at one stroke." From which suggestion Dolly always escaped as fast as possible.
It turned out that they were to stay a good while at Naples. Perhaps Mr. Copley feared the seclusion of a private house at Sorrento. However that were, he seemed to find motives to detain him where he was, and Lawrence St. Leger was nothing loth. The days went by, till Dolly herself grew impatient. They went very much after the former manner, as far as the gentlemen were concerned; Lawrence found society, and Mr.
Copley too, naturally, took pleasure in meeting a good many people to whom he was known. What other pleasure he took in their company Dolly could but guess; with him things went on very much as they had done in Rome.
With her, not. Dolly knew nobody, kept close by her mother, who eschewed all society, and so of course had no likenesses to paint. She worked busily at the other sort of painting which had engaged her in Venice; made lovely little pictures of Naples; rather of bits of Naples; characteristic bits; which were done with so much truth and grace that Rupert without difficulty disposed of them to the fancy dealers. The time of photographs was not yet; and Dolly made money steadily. She enjoyed this work greatly. Her other pleasures were found in walks about the city, and in visits to the museum. There was not in Naples the wealth of art objects which had been so inexhaustible in Rome; nevertheless, the museum furnished an interest all its own; and Dolly went there day after day. Indeed, the interest grew; and objects which at her first going she passed carelessly by, at the fourth or fifth she began to study with intent interest. The small bronzes found at Pompeii were pored over by her and Rupert till they almost knew the several pieces by heart, and had constructed over them a whole system of the ways of private life in those old days when they were made and used. Dolly often managed to persuade her father to be her escort when she went to the museum; and Mr. Copley would go patiently, for Dolly's sake, seeing the extreme delight it afforded her; but Mr. Copley was not always to be had, and then Dolly chose certain parts of the collection which she and Rupert could study together. So they gave a great deal of time to the collection of coins; not at first, but by degrees drawn on. So with the famous collection of antique bronzes.
Rupert looked on these in the beginning with a depreciating eye.
"What's the fun here? I don't get at it," he remarked.
"O Rupert! the beauty of the things."
"They are what I call right homely. What a colour they have got. Is it damp, or what?"
"Don't you know? these dark ones come from Herculaneum, and were locked up in lava; the others, the greenish ones, are from Pompeii, where the covering was lighter and they were exposed to damp, as you say."
"Well, I suppose they are curious, being so ancient."
"Rupert, they are most beautiful."
But Rupert as well as Dolly found a mine of interest in the Greek and gladiatorial armour and weapons.
"It makes my head turn!" said Rupert.
"What?"
"Why, it is eighteen hundred years ago. To think that men lived and fought with those helmets and weapons and shields, so long back! and now here are the shields and helmets, but where are the men?"
Dolly said nothing.
"Do you think they are anywhere?"
"Certainly!" said Dolly, turning upon him. "As certainly as they wore that armour once."
"Where, then?"
"I can't tell you that. The Bible and the ancients call it Hades--the place of departed spirits."
"But here are their shields,--and folks come and look at them."
"Yes."
"It gives one a sort of queer feeling."
"Yes," said Dolly. "One of those helmets may have belonged to a conqueror, and another may have been unclasped from a dead gladiator's head. And it don't matter much to either of them now."
"It seems as if nothing in the world mattered much," said Rupert.
"It don't!" said Dolly quickly. "'The world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.'"
"You think such a one is better off than the rest?" said Rupert. "How?
You say the rest are living somewhere."
"Existing."
"What's the difference?"
"Just all the difference between light and darkness;--or between life and death. You would not call it living, if all joy and hope were gone out of existence; you would wish that existence could end."
"How do you know all about it so well, Miss Dolly?" the young man asked a little incredulously.
"Rupert, it begins in this world. I know a little of the difference now. I never was where all joy and hope were gone out of existence--though I have seen trouble," said Dolly gravely. "But I _do_ know that nothing in this world is so good as the love of Christ; and that without Him life is not life."
"People seem to have a good time without it," said Rupert.
"For a little. How would they be, do you think, if all their pleasures were taken away?--their money, and all their money gets for them; friends and all?"
"Wretched dogs," said Rupert.
"But nobody in the world that loved Christ was ever that," Dolly said, smiling.
There was in her smile something so tender and triumphant at once, that it silenced Rupert. It was a testimony quite beyond words. For that instant Dolly's spirit looked out of the transparent features, and the light went to Rupert's heart like an arrow. Dolly moved on, and he followed, not looking at the gladiators' shields or Greek armour.
"Then, Miss Dolly," he burst out, after his thoughts had been seething a little while,--"if this world is so little count, what's the use of anything that men do? what's the good of studying--or of working--or of coming to look at these old things?--or of doing anything else, but just religion?"
Dolly's eyes sparkled, but she laughed a little.
"You cannot 'do' religion that way, Rupert," she said. "The old monks made a mistake. What is the use? Why, if you are going to be a servant of Christ and spend your life in working for Him, won't you be the very best and most beautiful servant you can? Do you think a savage has as much power or influence in the world as an educated, accomplished, refined man? Would he do as much, or do it as well? If you are going to give yourself to Christ, won't you make the offering as valuable and as honourable as you can? That is what you would do if you were giving yourself to a woman, Rupert. I know you would."
Rupert had no chance to answer, for strangers drew near, and Dolly and he passed on. Perhaps he did not wish to answer.
There were other times when Dolly visited the museum with her father.