"It is just what you have been seeing in the bay of Naples," said Mrs. Copley.
"And Vesuvius, mother! Do look at Vesuvius; how noble it is from here, and in this light."
"We had Vesuvius at Naples too," said Mrs. Copley. "It is a wonder to me how people can be so fond of being near it, when you never know what tricks it will play you."
"Mother, dear, the lava never comes so far as this, in the worst eruptions."
"The fact that it never did does not prove what it may do some time."
"You are not afraid of it, surely?" said Mr. Copley.
"No," said his wife. "But I have no pleasure in looking at anything that has done, and is going to do, so much mischief. It seems to me a kind of monster."
"You cannot be fond of the sea, at that rate, Mrs. Copley," Lawrence observed.
"No, you are right," she said. "The only thing I like about it is, that it is the way home."
"You don't want to see the way home just now, my dear," said Mr. Copley. "You have but now got to the place of your desires."