"Oh, but not until we have seen Venice."
"I have seen Venice enough to content me. It is the wettest place I was ever in my life."
"Why, it rains, mother. Any place is wet when it rains."
"This would be wet at all times. I think the ground must have sunk, Dolly; people would never have built in the water so. The ground must have sunk."
"No, mother; I guess not. It has been always just so."
"What made them build here then, when there is all the earth beside? What did they take to the water for? And what are the houses standing on, any way?"
"Islands, mother, between which these canals run. I told you before."
"I should think the people hadn't any sense."
And nothing would tempt Mrs. Copley out that day. Of course Dolly must stay at home too, though she would most gladly have gone about through the rainy, silent city, in one of those silent gondolas, and feed her eyes at every step. However, she made herself and made her mother as comfortable as she could; got out her painting and worked at Rupert's portrait, which was so successful that Lawrence begged she would begin upon him at once.
"You know the conditions," she said.