"The thought don't strike me," she said.
"But he's very rich, isn't he?"
"Yes. That is nothing to me. I wouldn't give my father and mother for him."
"But for your father and mother's sake?"—There was a knock at the door here. "What is it? dinner? Come, Dolly; we'll reason afterwards."
The dinner was excellent. More than the excellence, however, went to Dolly's enjoyment. The rare luxury of eating without having to think what it cost, and without careful management to make sure that enough was left for the next day's breakfast and lunch. It was great luxury! and how Dolly felt it, no one there could in the least guess. With that, however, as the evening went on and the unwonted soft atmosphere of ease was taking effect upon her, Dolly again and again drew the contrast between herself and her friend. How sheltered and guarded, and fenced in and fenced off, Christina was! how securely and safely blooming in the sacred enclosure of fatherly and motherly care! and Dolly—alas, alas! her defences were all down, and she herself, delicate and tender, forced into the defender's place, to shield those who should have shielded her. It pressed on her by degrees, as the sweet unaccustomed feeling of ease and rest made itself more and more sensible, and by contrast she realised more and more the absence of it in her own life. It pressed very bitterly.
The girls had just withdrawn again after dinner to the firelight cosiness of Christina's room, when Mrs. Thayer put her head in.
"Christina, here's Baron Krämer and Signor Count Villa Bella, come to know if you will go to the Sistine Chapel."
"Mother!—how you put titles together! Oh, I remember; there is music at the Sistine to-night. But Sandie might come."
"And might not," said Mrs. Thayer. "You will have time enough to see Sandie; and this is Christmas Eve, you know. You may not be in Rome next Christmas."
"Would you like to go, Dolly?" said Christina doubtfully.