it is fancy, it is just as good as reality. She was pining when we
were here before, until we went down to Brierley; and she will lose all
she has gained in her travelling if we keep her here now."

"Well--I'll see what I can do," said Mr. Copley, rising from the table.
"When is St. Leger coming back?"

"How should I know? I know nothing at all of his purposes but what he
told us."

"Have you thrown him over?"

"I never took him up."

"Then you are more of a goose than I thought you. He'll be caught by
that fair friend of yours, before he gets out of Italy. Good morning!"

Mr. Copley hurried away; and Dolly was left to her doubts. What could
so interest and hold him in a place where he had no official business,
where his home was not, and he had no natural associations? Was it the
attraction of mere pleasure, or was it pleasure under that mischievous,
false face of gain, which men delight in and call speculation. And from
speculation proper, carried on among the business haunts of men, there
is not such a very wide step in the nature of things to the green level
of the gaming-table. True, many men indulge in the one variety who have
a horror of the other; but Dolly's father, she knew, had a horror of
neither. Stocks, or dice, what did it matter? and in both varieties the
men who played with him, she knew too, would help their play with wine.
Against these combined powers, what was she? And what was to become of
them all?

Part of the question was answered at dinner that evening. Mr. Copley
announced that Brierley Cottage was unoccupied and that he had retaken
it for them.

"Brierley!" cried Mrs. Copley. "Brierley! Are we going back _there_
again! Frank, do you mean that we are to spend all our lives apart in
future?"

"Not at all, my dear! If you will be so good as to stay with me, I
shall be very happy."

"In London! But you know very well I cannot live in London."

"Then you can go down to Brierley."

"And how often shall you come there?"

"When the chinks of business are wide enough to let me slip through."

"Business! All you live for is business. Mr. Copley, what do you expect
is to become of Dolly, shut up in a cottage down in the country?"

"How is she to get married, you mean? _She_ expects a fairy prince to
come along one of these days; and of course he could find her at
Brierley as easily as anywhere. It makes no difference in a fairy tale.
In fact, the unlikely places are just the ones whe