CHRISTMAS EVE.
Christmas Eve came, and Rupert attended Dolly to the Piazza di Spagna,
where her friends had apartments in a great hotel. Dolly was quite
prepared to enjoy herself; the varied delights of the foregoing days
had lifted her out of the quiet, patient mood of watchful endurance
which of late had been chronic with her, and her spirits were in a flow
and stir more fitted to her eighteen years. She was going through the
streets of Rome! the forms of the ages rose before her mind's eye
continually, and before her bodily eye appeared here and there tokens
and remains which were like the crumblings of those ages; tangible
proofs that once they had been, and that Rome was still Rome. Dolly
drew breaths of pleasure as she and Rupert walked along.
"You are going to stay all night?" said Rupert.
"Yes, they want me."
"And they have asked nobody but you?" said Rupert, who was not
conventional.
"They wanted nobody but me. It is not a party; it is my old
school-friend only, who wants to show me her future husband."
Rupert grunted his intelligence, and at the same time his
mystification. "What for?" he asked. And Dolly laughed.
"I don't know! It is natural, I suppose, to some people. Here we are.
Good night."
The Thayers were very well lodged indeed. Dolly found herself in really
charming rooms, well furnished and well lighted. She was joyfully
received, and Christina led her forthwith through saloon and
dining-room to the sanctuary of her own chamber. A certain feeling of
contrast began to fall upon Dolly already, Christina looked so very
fresh and fair and well kept; the lightest veil of anxiety had never
shadowed her bloom; the most remote cloud of embarrassment or need had
never risen on her horizon. Careless, happy, secure, her mind knew no
burden. It made Dolly feel the pressure of her own; and yet she was
glad, for a little, to get into this atmosphere of peace and
confidence, and enjoy it even by the contrast. Christina's room looked
like a curiosity shop. It was littered with recent purchases; all sorts
of pretty things, useful and useless.
"One cannot help buying," she said, excusing herself. "I see something
at every step that I want; and I must get it when I see it, or I may
never see it again, you know. It is great fun, but sometimes I almost
get tired. Here, dear, I can lay your things here. Isn't my fire nice?
Now sit down and warm yourself. It's too delightful to have you! It is
like a bit of home, and a bit of old times. Those old school days were
pleasant?"
"Very pleasant!" said Dolly, sitting down and looking into the queer
but bright fire of small sticks which burned in Christina's chimney.
"Very pleasant! I was with my dear Aunt Hal, in Philadelphia."
"But these days are better, Dolly," Miss Thayer went on. "That wasn't
much compared to this."
"I don't know," said Dolly. "There was no care in those times."
"Care?" exclaimed Christina, as if she did not know the meaning of the
word. "What care have you, Dolly? I have none, except the care to make
my money buy all I want--which it won't, so I may as well make up my
mind to it, and I do. What have you been getting in Rome?"
"Oh, more pleasure than I knew so many days could hold," said Dolly,
laying some of the sticks of the fire straight.
"Isn't it wonderful? I think there's nothing like Rome. Unless,
perhaps, Paris."
"Paris!" said Dolly. "What's at Paris?"
"Ah, you don't know it, or you wouldn't ask! Everything, my dear. Rome
has a good deal, certainly, but Paris has _everything_. Now tell
me,--are you engaged?"
"I? No. Of course not."
"I don't see why it's of course. Most people are at one time or
another; and I didn't know but your time had come."
"No," said Dolly. "Neither the time nor the man. I've come to hear
about yours."
"If he's good, you'll see him; the man, I mean. He promised to be with
us at Christmas, if he could; and he always keeps his promises."
"That's a good thing," said Dolly. .
"Ye-s," said Christina, "that is, of course, a good thing. One likes to
have promises kept. But it is possible to have too much of a good
thing."
"Not of keeping promises!" said Dolly in unfeigned astonishment.
"I don't know," said Christina. "Sandie is so fixed in everything; he
holds to his opinions and his promises and his expectations; and he
holds a trifle too fast."
"He has a right to hold to his expectations, surely," said Dolly,
laughing.
"Not too much," said Christina. "He has no right to expect everybody to
keep their promises as precisely as he does his! People aren't made
alike."
"No; but honour is honour."
"Come, now, Dolly," said Christina laughing in her turn, "you are
another! You are just a little bit precise, like my Sandie. You cannot
make all the world alike, if you try; and he can't."
"I am not going to try, and I think it would be a very stupid world if
I could do it; but nobody ought to raise _expectations_ he is not
prepared to gratify."
"Like a sentence out of a book!" cried Christina. "But Sandie is the
most unchangeable person; he will not take any views of anything but
the views he has always taken; he is as fixed as the rock of Gibraltar,
and almost as distinct and detached from the rest of the world."
"And don't you like that?"
"No; confess I do not. I'd like him to come down a little from his high
place and mix with the rest of us mortals."
"What expectations does he indulge which you are not willing to meet?"
"That's the very thing!" cried Christina, in her turn stooping to
arrange the little sticks and pile more on; "he is unreasonable."
"How?"
"Wants me to marry him."
"Is that unreasonable?"
"Yes! till things are ready for such a step, and I am ready."
"What things?"
"Dolly, he is only the first officer of his ship. He was distinguished
in the last war, and he has the prospect of promotion. I don't want to
marry him till he is a captain."
"Why?" said Dolly.
"Why?--Don't you understand? He would have a better position then, and
better pay; and could give me a better time generally; and mamma thinks
we ought to wait. And I like waiting. It's better fun, I do think, to
be engaged than to be married. I _know_ I shouldn't have my head near
so much if I was married to Sandie. I do just as I like now; for mamma
and I are always of a mind."
"And are not you and Mr. Shubrick of a mind?"
"Not about this," said Christina, getting up from the hearth, and
laughing.
"Pray, if one may ask, how long have you and he been waiting already?"
"Oh, _he_ thinks it is a great while; but what is the harm of waiting?"
"Well, how long is it, Christina?"
"Dolly, we were engaged very young. It was before I left school; one
summer when I was home for the vacation. I was sixteen; that is four
years ago, and more."
"Four years!" cried Dolly.
"Yes. Of course we were too young then to think of marrying. He was
home on furlough, and I was home for the vacation; and our houses were
near together; and so we made it up. His people were not very well off,
but mine were; so there was nothing in the way, and nobody objected
much; only mother said we must wait."
"What are you waiting for now, Christina?"
"I told you. I am in no hurry, for my part. I want Sandie to get his
ship; and in the meanwhile it is just as nice to be as we are. We see
each other when we can; and Italy is Italy; and I am very contented.
Unfortunately, Sandie isn't."
"How long do you propose to go on waiting?"
"I don't know. Oh, I don't know! and I don't care. What is the harm of
waiting?"
"That depends on what you promise yourselves in being married."
"Dolly," said Christina thoughtfully, "I don't promise myself anything
much better than I have got now. If Sandie would only be content, I
could go on so for ever."
"And not be married?"
"Besides, Dolly, I don't want to keep house in a small way. I do not!
and if I married a lieutenant in the navy, I couldn't do anything else.
You see, Sandie would not live upon papa's money; though papa would do
anything for me; but Sandie won't; and on _his_ means we should live on
a very small scale indeed."
"But you would have enough?"
"Enough for what? We should have enough to eat. But, Dolly, I do not
like to have to think of economy. I have never been used to it. Look at
my room; see the things I have got together these last few days. Look
here--this is a ring I want you to wear for me. Isn't it delicious? It
is as old as the best time of cameo-cutting, they say, but I do not
remember when that was; it's rather large for a lady's ring, but it is
an undoubted beauty. Jupiter's eagle, with the thunderbolts. Just look
at the plumage of the bird,--and its fierce eye!"
Dolly was greatly delighted. Of all the pretty things she had seen
during the weeks past, she had bought nothing, save one or two bits for
her mother. This gift was vastly more to Dolly than Christina could
imagine. She had so literally everything she wanted, that no further
acquisition could give her great pleasure. It lacked the enhancement of
difficulty and rarity. I suppose the ring was more to Dolly than her
whole roomful beside to Christina. It was in truth a very exquisite
cameo. Dolly put it on her finger and looked at it in different lights,
and admired it and enjoyed it hugely; while at the same time it gave an
odd grace of setting-off to her simple dress. Dolly was in a plain
black silk, with no adornment at all, until she put the ring on. Unless
her quaint old cable chain could be called such. _That_ Dolly always
wore. She was a sweet, quaint figure, illuminated by the firelight, as
Christina observed her; girlish and graceful, with a fair face and
beautiful hair; the sober dress and the true womanly eyes making a
certain hidden harmony, and the cameo setting a seal of daintiness and
rareness to the whole. Christina was seized with admiration that had a
good deal of respect blended with it of a sudden.
"You don't agree with me, Dolly," she said after a little, when Dolly's
thanks and the beauty of the ring had been sufficiently discussed, and
a pause had brought the thoughts of both back to the former subject.
"What do you want, Christina?"
"I just want to be happy and comfortable," said the girl, "as I always
have been. I don't want to come down to pinching. Is that unreasonable?"
"You would not have to pinch, Christina."
"Yes, I should; to live like the rest of the world."
"Are you obliged to do that?"
"Live like the rest of the world? Yes, or be out of the world."
"I thought you were a Christian," said Dolly softly.
"A Christian! Yes, so I am. What has that got to do with it?"
"A good deal, I should say. Tiny, you cannot follow Christ and be like
the world."
"I don't want to be like the world, in bad things; but I mean things
that are not bad. One must be like the world in some ways, if one can.
Don't you set up for being any better than me, Dolly, for I won't stand
it; we are all really just alike."
"The world and Christians?"
"Yes; in some things."
"Ways of living?"
"Yes,--in some ways."
"Christina, did you use to think so in old times?"
"I was young then; I did not know the world. You have _got_ to do as
the world do, in a measure, Dolly."
Dolly was silent a bit. She too, on her part, observed her friend. Fair
and handsome she was; very handsome; with the placid luxuriance of
nature which has never known shocks or adverse weather. Dolly felt the
contrast which Christina had also felt, but Dolly went deeper into it.
She and her friend had drifted apart, not in regard for each other, but
in life and character; and Dolly involuntarily compared their
experiences. Trouble to Christina was a word of unknown meaning; to
herself it was become daily bread. Had that made the difference?
Christina was living on the surface of things; skimming a smooth sea in
a gilded gondola; shelter and adornment were all about her life, and
plenty within. Dolly had been, as it were, cast into the waves and was
struggling with them; now lifted on a high crest, and now brought down
to the bottom. Was that how she had learned to know that there were
wonderful things of preciousness and beauty at the bottom of the sea?
and must one perhaps be tossed by the storm to find out the value and
the power of the hand that helps? It did smite Dolly with a kind of
pain, the sense of Christina's sheltered position and security; the
thought of the father's arms that were a harbour for her, the
guardianship that came between her and all the roughness of the world.
And yet, Dolly along with the bitterness of this, was tasting also
something else which did not enter Christina's cup of life; a rarer
sweetness, which she would not have exchanged for Christina's whole
draught. She had found jewels more precious at the depth of the sea
than ever Christina could pick up in her pleasure sail along shore.
Christina, with all her luxury, was missing something, and in danger of
losing more. Dolly resolved to speak.
"Do you know, Tiny," she said, "if I were Mr. Shubrick, I should not be
satisfied?"
"Why not?" said Christina carelessly.
"Why, you are preferring the world to him."
"I am not! No such thing, Dolly. I love him dearly."
"By your own showing, you love--what shall I say?--luxuries and
position, more."
"I only want to wait a little."
"And, Christina--I don't believe God likes it."
"Likes what?"
"Your wanting to do as the world do."
"How do you know I do?"
"You said so."
"I like to have a nice house, and servants enough, and furniture to
please me, and means to entertain my friends; and who doesn't? That's
all I ask for."
"And to do what everybody else does."
"Yes," said Christina smiling. "Who don't?"
"You were on the Pincian Hill Sunday afternoon."
"Yes," said Christina suddenly, looking up. "Why not? Why weren't you
there?"
"If you will read the last two verses of the fifty-eighth chapter of
Isaiah, you will know."
"I can't read in this light," said Christina, looking round the room,
"and I don't know just where I have laid my Bible. Everybody goes to
the Pincian. It's no harm."
"Would Mr. Shubrick go?"
"Who told you he wouldn't?" said Christina. "I declare, if you are
going to help him in his crotchets, I won't let you see much of him!
Sandie!--he's just an unmanageable, unreasonable bit of
downrightness.--And uprightness," she added, laughing. "Dolly, he can
have his own way aboard ship; but in the world one can't get along so.
One must conform a little. One must."
"Does God like it?" said Dolly.
"What queer questions you ask! This is not a matter of religion; it is
only living."
Dolly remembered words which came very inconveniently across
Christina's principles; yet she was afraid of saying too much. She
reflected that her friend was breathing the soft air of luxury, which
is not strengthening, and enveloped in a kind of mist of
conventionality, through which she could not see. With herself it was
different. She had been thrown out of all that; forced to do battle
with necessity and difficulty, and so driven to lay hold of the one
hand of strength and deliverance that she could reach. What wonder if
she held it fast and held it dear? while Christina seemed hardly to
have ever felt the need of anything.
"Now, Dolly, tell me all about yourself," Christina broke in upon her
meditations.
"There isn't much to tell."
"What have you been doing?"
"Painting miniatures--one of the last things."
"Oh, delightful! Copies?"
"Copies from life. May I take you? and then perhaps, if I succeed, you
will get me work."
"Work!" repeated Christina.
Dolly nodded. "Yes; I want work."
"Work!" cried Christina again. "Dolly, you don't mean that you _need_
it? Don't say that!"
"I do. That's nothing so dreadful, if only I can get it. I paint
miniatures for--I have had ten and I have had twenty pounds," said
Dolly with a laugh; "but twenty is magnificent. I do not ask twenty."
Christina exclaimed with real sorrow and interest, and was eager to
know the cause of such a state of things. Dolly could but give her the
bare facts, not the philosophy of them.
"You poor, dear, lovely little Dolly!" cried Christina. "A thought
strikes me. Why don't you marry this handsome, rich young Englishman?"
Again Dolly's face dimpled all over.
"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.
Dolly's heart jumped at the invitation; music and the Sistine Chapel!
But it did not suit her to make an inconvenient odd one in a partie
carrée, among strangers. She declined.
"I said I would go," said Mrs. Thayer. "Since the gentlemen have come
to take you, I think you had better. Dolly will not mind losing you for
an hour or two."
Which Dolly eagerly confirmed; wondering much at the same time to see
Christina hesitate, when her lover, as she said, might come at any
minute.
She, too, finally resolved against it, however; and when Mrs. Thayer
and the gentlemen had gone, and Mr. Thayer had withdrawn, as his custom
was, to his own apartment, the two girls took possession of the
forsaken drawing-room. It was a pretty room, very well furnished, and
like every other part of the present home of the Thayers, running over
with new possessions in the shape of bits of art or antiquity,
pictures, and trinkets of every kind, which they were always picking
up. These were an infinite amusement to Dolly; and Christina was
good-humouredly pleased with her pleasure.
"There's no fun in being in Rome," she remarked, "if you cannot buy all
you see. I would run away if my purse gave out."
"But there is all that you cannot take away," said Dolly. "Think of
what your mother has gone to this evening."
"The Sistine Chapel," said Christina. "I don't really care for it.
Those stupid old prophets and sybils say nothing to me; though of
course one must make a fuss about them; and the picture of the Last
Judgment, _I_ think, is absolutely frightful."
But here Dolly's eyes arrested her friend.
"Well, I tell you the truth; I do think so," she said. "I may tell the
truth to you. I do not care one pin for Michael Angelo."
"Mayn't you tell the truth to anybody?"
"Not unless I want to be stared at; and I do not want to be stared at,
in _that_ way. I am glad I did not go with mamma and those people; if
Sandie had come, I do not think he would have altogether liked it.
Though I don't know but it is good to make men jealous. Mamma says it
is."
"Oh no!" said Dolly. "Not anybody you care for."
"What do _you_ know?" said Christina archly. Before she could receive
an answer, then, she had started and sprung up; for the door gently
opened and on the threshold presented himself a gentleman in naval
uniform.
"Sandie!" cried Christina.
"Didn't you expect me?" he said with a frank and bright smile.
Dolly had heard enough about this personage to make her very curious;
and her eyes took keen note of him. She saw a tall, upright figure,
with that free poise of bearing which is a compound of strength and
ease; effortless, quiet, graceful, and dignified. Though in part the
result of a certain symmetry of joints and practised activity in the
use of them, this sort of bearing refers itself also, and yet more
surely, to the character, and makes upon the beholder the impression
again of strength and ease in the mental action. It is not common; it
struck Dolly in the first five steps he made into the room and in the
manner of his greeting his betrothed. Out of delicate consideration, I
suppose, for the company in which they found themselves, he offered
only a look and a hand-clasp; but Christina jumped up and kissed him.
She was not short, yet she had to make a little spring to reach his
lips. And then, quietly putting an arm round her, he gave her her kiss
back. Christina was rosy when she turned to present him, and both were
smiling. Letting her go, he bowed low before Christina's friend; low
and gravely; with such absolute gravity that Dolly almost felt herself
in the way; as if he wished her not there. Then they sat down around
the fire; and the same feeling came over her again with a rush. They
were three; they ought to have been but two; she was one too many; they
must wish her away. And yet, Christina had asked her precisely and
specially that she might be one of the company that night. Dolly would
have wished herself away, nevertheless; only that she was so very much
interested, and could not. The newcomer excited her curiosity greatly,
and provoked her observation; and, if the truth must be told, exercised
also a powerful attraction upon her. He sat before the fire, full in
her view, and struck Dolly as different from all the people she had
ever seen in her life. She took glances from time to time, as she
could, at the fine, frank, manly face, which had an unusual combination
of the two qualities, frankness and manliness; was much more than
usually serious, for a man of his age; and yet, she saw now and then,
could break to tenderness or pleasure or amusement, with a sweetness
that was winning. Dolly was fascinated, and could not wish herself
away; why should she, if Christina did not?
In all her life she never forgot the images of two of the people around
the fire that evening. "Sandie" in the middle, in front of the blaze;
Christina on the other hand of him. She was in a glistening robe of
dark blue silk, her fair hair knotted and wound gracefully about her
head; a beautiful creature; looking at her lover with complacent looks
of possession and smiles of welcome. Dolly never knew what sort of a
figure the third was; she could not see herself, and she never thought
about it. Yet she was a foil to the other two, and they were a foil to
her, as she sat there at the corner of the hearth on a low cushion, in
her black dress, and with no ornament about her other than the cameo
ring. A creature very different from the beauty at the other corner of
the fireplace; more delicate, more sensitive, more spiritual; oddly and
inexplicably, more of a child and more of a woman. That's a rare
mixture. There was something exceedingly sweet and simple in her soft
brown eyes and her lips; but the eyes had looked at life, the brow was
grave, and the lips could close into lines of steady will. The delicate
vessel was the shrine of a soul, as large as it could hold, and so had
taken on the transparent nobility which belongs to the body when the
soul is allowed to be dominant. One point of the contrast between the
two girls was in the character and arrangement of their hair.
Christina's was smooth, massed, and in a sort massive; Dolly's
clustered or was knotted about her head, without the least disorder,
but with a wilfulness of elegant play most harmonious with all the rest
of her appearance. To characterise the two in a word, Christina was a
beautiful pearl, and Dolly was a translucent opal.
They sat down round the fire.
"Well, Sandie, you naughty boy," Christina began, "what has kept you
away all this time?"
"Duty."
"Duty! I told you so, Dolly; this man has only two or three words in
his vocabulary, which he trots out on all occasions to do general
service. One of them is 'duty;' another is 'must.'"
"'Must' is the true child of 'duty,'" the gentleman remarked.
"Oh no, I don't allow that; it is a marriage connection, which may be
dissolved by a dispensation."
"Is that your idea of the marriage connection?" said he with a smile.
"But, Sandie! don't you want something to eat?"
"No, thank you."
"Because you can have it in a moment."
"I have dined, Christina."
"Where have you been all this while--weeks and weeks?"
"Have you not received any letters from me?"
"Yes, indeed! but words are so different spoken and written. We have
been half over Europe. I wish you could have been along! Sandie, we
went to Baden-Baden."
"What for?"
"_What for!_ Why, to see it. And we saw the gaming."
"How did you like it?"
"It is fascinating. I never saw such a scene in my life; the people's
faces; and then the mad eagerness with which they went at it; old men
and young men, and women. Oh, it was astonishing to see the women!"
"What was the effect upon you?"
"I don't know; astonishment."
"How did Mrs. Thayer like it?"
"Do you know, I think she half wanted to try her hand? I was so amazed
at mother! I told her she must not."
"You observe, Miss Copley, Miss Thayer knows the use of one of my
words."
It was a strange, novel, absorbing experience to Dolly. Sitting at one
corner of the hearth, quiet, and a little as it were a one side, she
watched the play and the people. She was so delightfully set free for
the moment from all her home cares and life anxieties. It was like
getting out of the current and rush of the waves into a nook of a bay,
where her tossed little skiff could lie still for a bit, and the
dangers and difficulties of navigation did not demand her attention.
She rested luxuriously and amused herself with seeing and hearing what
went on. And to tell the whole truth, Dolly was more than amused; she
was interested; and watched and listened keenly. Christina was a lovely
figure in her bright dress and bright beauty, a little excited, and
happy, not too much; not too much to make Dolly's presence desirable
and agreeable; just enough to make her more lovely than usual. The
other figure of the little party was more interesting yet to Dolly. She
thought he was very peculiar, and unlike any one she had ever seen. His
repose of demeanour was striking; he seemed to make no unnecessary
movement; he sat still; neither hand nor head nor foot betrayed any
restlessness either of mind or body; and yet when he did move, were it
only hand or foot or head, the impression he gave Dolly was of
readiness for the keenest action, if the time for action once came. How
the two seemingly contradictory impressions were conveyed together,
Dolly did not stop to think; she had no time to moralise upon her
observations; however, this mingling of calm and vigour was very
imposing to her; it attracted and fascinated. No man could sit more
quiet in company; and yet, if he turned his head or shifted the
position of his hand, what Dolly saw was power and readiness to move
with effect if there were anything to be done; and the calm intensified
the power to her mind. And then, apart from all this, the room in which
they were sitting was filled with pretty things and charming things
which the Thayers had been collecting since they came to Rome. Dolly's
eye strayed from one to another, as she sat listening to her
companions; though the pretty things never diverted her attention from
what these were saying or what they were doing. It was a charmed hour
altogether! of rest and relief and enjoyment. Taken out of herself and
away from her cares, Dolly tasted and delighted in the fairy minutes as
they flew, and did not even trouble herself to think how soon they
would be flown by and gone.
"You have been a great while away, Sandie," Christina was saying. "Why
could you not join us before? You might have skipped something. Here
have I stayed away from the Sistine to-night, for your sake."
"Is it any special loss, this evening of all others?"
"Certainly! It is Christmas; there is music, and company."
"Do you enjoy the Sistine Chapel, apart from music and company?"
"No, indeed I don't! I don't like it at all. Such horrid things on the
walls, as are enough to give one the nightmare after being there. I
know it is Michael Angelo, and I am horribly out of order in saying so;
but what is the use of pretending in _this_ company?"
"What is the use of pretending in any company?"
"Oh, nonsense, Sandie! a great deal. Everybody pretends, at some time
or other. What would become of us if we spoke out all we had in our
minds?"
"You do not like the Sistine Chapel. What do you enjoy most in Rome?"
"Most? The Pincian, Sunday afternoon."
"Sunday! Why Sunday?"
"Music, and all the world there. It's the most beautiful scene, in the
first place, and the most amusing, that you can find. There is
_everybody_ there, Sandie; people from all the quarters of the earth;
of all nationalities and costumes; the oddest and the prettiest;
everybody you know and everybody you don't know."
"But why on Sunday?"
"Oh, that's the special day; that and Thursday, I believe; but I
generally have something else to do Thursday; and anyhow there isn't as
good a show. I rarely go Thursday."
"And Sunday you have nothing else to do. I see."
"Well, Sandie, of course we have been to church in the morning, you
know. There is nothing to go to in the afternoon. What should one do?"
"Miss Copley, do you enjoy the Pincian on Sunday evenings?"
"I have not tried it," said Dolly.
"Your mother and father were there, though, last Sunday," said
Christina. "Sandie, what are you thinking of? You have some
superstitious objection? I daresay you have!"
"Not I," said Mr. Shubrick. "But it occurs to me that there is a
command somewhere, touching the question."
"What command? In the Bible! Sandie, do you think those Sunday commands
are to be taken just as they stand--to mean just so? and shut one
stupidly up in the house for all day Sunday except when one is going in
procession to church?"
"You know," said Mr. Shubrick, "I am like the centurion in the Bible,
'a man under authority,' having other men under me; 'and I say to this
man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come and he cometh.' I know
nothing about orders that are not to be obeyed."
"And is that the way you would rule your house?" said Christina, half
pouting.
"I should leave that to you," he answered smiling. "It is enough for me
to rule my ship. The house would be your care."
"Would it? Does that mean that you expect always to be a sailor?"
"It is my profession. A man must do something."
"If he _must_. But not if he has no need to do anything?"
The young officer looked at her with a considerative sort of gravity,
and inquired if she could respect a lazy man.
"No, and you never would be lazy, or could be lazy," she said,
laughing. "But surely there are things enough to be done on shore."
"Things enough. The question for every one is where he can do most."
"Why, Sandie," Christina cried, "it is not possible that you should
have your time to yourself on shipboard, and as an acting officer, as
you could at home on shore. Reading and study, that, you like, I know;
and then painting, and all art pleasures, that you think so much about,
much more than I do; and a thousand other things;--you have no chance
for them at sea."
"You talk as if one had nothing to do but to please himself."
"Well," said Christina, "so far as one can, why not? Does not all the
world?"
"Yes. All the world. You are right. All the world, except a little body
of men who follow Christ; and _He_, pleased not Himself. I thought you
knew I was one of His servants, Christina."
"Does that forbid your pleasing yourself?"
"Not in one way," said Mr. Shubrick, smiling again, a smile that made
Dolly's heart throb with its meaning. "It is my pleasure to do my
Master's will. The work He has given me to do, I would rather do of all
things."
"I can't think what work you mean, Sandie. I really do not understand."
"Do you understand, Miss Copley?"
Dolly started. "I believe so," she said.
"Will you have the goodness to explain to Christina?"
"Why don't you explain yourself, Sandie?" said his betrothed.
"I am talking too much. Besides, it will come better from Miss Copley's
lips."
"I don't think so; but however.--Well, Dolly, if you are to explain,
please explain. But how come _you_ to understand, when I don't
understand? What work does he mean?"
"I suppose," said Dolly, "Mr. Shubrick means work for other people."
"Work for other people!" cried Christina. "Do you think _we_ do not do
work for other people? Mamma gives away loads; she does a great deal
for the poor. She is always doing it."
"And you?"
"Oh, I help now and then. But she does not want my help much."
"Did you think, Miss Copley, I meant work for poor people?"
"No," said Dolly. "At least--that is--I thought you meant the work that
is for Christ."
"Well, I am sure He commanded us to take care of the poor," said
Christina.
"He commanded us also to carry the gospel to every creature."
"That's for ministers, and missionaries," said Christina.
"The order was given to all the disciples, and He commanded us to be
lights in the world."
"Of course--to set good examples."
"That is not quite the whole," said Mr. Shubrick; "though people do
take it so, I believe."
"I have always taken it so," said Dolly. "What more can it be?"
"Remember the words--'Whatsoever _doth make manifest_ is light.' There
is the key. There are good examples--so called--which disturb nobody.
There are others,"--he spoke very gravely,--"before which sin knows
itself, and conscience shrinks away; before which no lie can stand.
Those are the Lord's light-bearers."
"Sandie, what has got you into this vein of moralising? Is this talk
for Christmas Eve, when we ought to be merry? Don't you lead a dreadful
dull life on board ship?"
"No," said he. "Never. Neither there nor anywhere else."
"Are you always picking at the wick of that light of yours, to make it
shine more?"
"By no means. No lamp would stand such treatment. No; the only thing
for us to do in that connection is to see that the supply of oil is
kept up."
"Sandie, life would be fearful on your terms!"
"I do not find it so."
And, "Oh no, Christina!" came from Dolly's lips at the same time.
Christina looked from one to the other.
"I had better gone to the Sistine," she said. "I suppose you would tell
me there to look at Michael Angelo's picture of the Last Judgment. But
I assure you I never do. I make a point not to see it."
"What do _you_ enjoy most in this old city, Miss Copley?" Mr. Shubrick
said now, turning to her.
"I hardly can tell," said Dolly; "I enjoy it all so very much. I think,
of all--perhaps the Colosseum."
"That old ruin!" said Christina.
"But it is such a beautiful ruin! Have you seen it by moonlight? And I
always think of the time when it was finished, and full, and of the
things that were done there; and I fancy the times when the moonlight
shone in just so after the days when Christians had been given to the
lions. I never get tired of the Colosseum."
"You, too!" exclaimed Christina. "What pleasant and enlivening
contemplations!"
"Yes," said Dolly. "Grand. I see the moonlight shining on the broken
walls of the Colosseum, and I think of the martyrs in their white
robes. There is no place brings me nearer to heaven, and the world
looks so small."
"Dolly Copley!" cried Christina. "Do you want the world to look small,
as long as you are obliged to live in it?"
"It looks big enough," said Dolly, smiling, "as soon as I get home."
The conversation, however, after this did take a turn, and ran upon
more everyday topics; less interesting to Dolly however. But the
speakers were interesting always; and she watched them, the play of
sense and nonsense, of feeling and fun, not caring much that the matter
of the talk did not concern her; until Mrs. Thayer and her escort were
heard returning.
And then, indeed, the evening changed its character; however the
fascination remained for Dolly. The talk was no longer on personal
subjects; it went gaily and jovially over all sorts of light matters;
an excellent supper was served; and in the novelty and the brightness
and the liveliness of all about her, Dolly was in a kind of
bewitchment. It was a lull, a pause in the midst of her cares, a still
nook to which an eddy had brought her, out of the current; Dolly took
the full benefit. She would not think of trouble. Sometimes a swift
feeling of contrast swept in upon her, the contrast of her friend's
safe and sheltered life. No care for her; no anxiety about ways and
means; no need to work for money; and no need to fear for anybody dear
to her. Christina's father was _her_ guardian, not she his; he might be
a very humdrum man, and no doubt was, but his daughter had no cause to
be ashamed for him; had not the burden of his life and character on her
own shoulders to take care of. A swift, keen feeling of this contrast
would come over Dolly; but she put it away as instantly, and would not
see or hear anything but what was pleasant.