Dolly thoughtfully; "but I like it. Then, mother,
came the dinner; and the dinner was like the house."

"That don't tell me anything," exclaimed Mrs. Copley. "What was the
house like?"

"Mother, you go first into a great hall, set all round with marble
figures--statues--and with a heavy staircase going up at one side. It's
all marble. But oh, the flower garden is lovely!"

"Well, tell me about the house," said Mrs. Copley. "And the dinner. Who
was there?"

"I don't know," said Dolly; "quite a company. There were one or two
foreign gentlemen; a count somebody and a baron somebody; there was an
English judge, and his wife, and two or three other ladies and
gentlemen."

"How did you like the gentlemen, Dolly?" her father asked here.

"I had hardly anything to do with them, except the two Mr. St. Legers."

"How did you like _them?_ I suppose, on your principle, you would tell
me that you liked the _old_ one?"

"Never mind them," said Mrs. Copley; "go on about the dinner. What did
you have?"

"Oh, everything, mother; and the most beautiful fruit at dessert; fruit
from their own hothouses; and I saw the hothouses, afterwards. Most
beautiful! the purple and white grapes were hanging in thick clusters
all over the vines; and quantities of different sorts of pines were
growing in another hothouse. I had a bunch of Frontignacs this morning
before breakfast, father; and I never had grapes taste so good."

"Yes, you must have wanted something," said Mr. Copley; "wandering
about among flowers and fruit till ten o'clock without anything to eat!"

"Poor Mr. St. Leger!" said Dolly. "But he was very kind. They were all
very kind. If they only would not drink wine so!"

"Wine!" Mrs. Copley exclaimed.

"It was all dinner time; it began with the soup, and it did not end
with the fruit, for the gentlemen sat on drinking after we had left
them. And they had been drinking all dinner time; the decanters just
went round and round."

"Nonsense, Dolly!" her father said; "you are unaccustomed to the world,
that is all. There was none but the most moderate drinking."

"It was all dinner time, father."

"That is the custom of gentlemen here. It is always so. Tell your
mother about the races."

"I don't like the races."

"Why not?"

"Well, tell me what they were, at any rate," said Mrs. Copley. "It is
the least you can do."

"I don't know how to tell you," said Dolly. "I will try. Imagine a
great flat plain, mother, level