"Mother, suppose you get in, and we'll talk as we go along. We had better get out of the rain; don't you think so? It is falling quite fast."
"I had rather be in the rain than in the sea. Dolly, if it isn't too far, I'll walk."
"It is too far, dear mother. You could not do that. It is a long way yet."
Lawrence stood by, biting his lips between impatience and a sense of the ridiculous; and withal admiring the tender, delicate patience of the girl who gently coaxed and reasoned and persuaded, and finally moved Mrs. Copley to suffer herself to be put in the gondola, on the forward deck of which Rupert had been helping the gondoliers to stow some of the baggage. Dolly immediately took her place beside her mother; the two young men followed, and the gondola pushed off. Mrs. Copley found herself comfortable among the cushions, felt that the motion of the gondola was smooth, assured herself that it would not turn over; finally felt at leisure to make observations again.
"We can't see anything here," she remarked, peering out first on one side, then on the other.
"There is nothing to see," said Lawrence, "but the banks of the canal."
"Very ugly banks, too. Are we going all the way by water now?"
"All the way, to our hotel door."
"Do the boatmen know where to go?"
"Yes. Have no fear."