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 inqu