"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."