"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."