ord's people, Christians, to
plants in the Lord's garden; and the Lord is the husbandman; and where
He sees that a plant is growing too rank and wild, He prunes it--cuts
it in--that it may be thriftier and healthier and do its work better."

"That's a dreadful idea! Where did you get it?"

"Christ said so," Dolly answered, looking now in the face of her
questioner. "Is it a dreadful idea? It does not seem so to me. He is
the husbandman. And I would not like to be a useless branch."

"You have been on the Continent lately?" Lady Brierley quitted the
former subject.

"Yes; last year."

"You went to my old lodging-house at Sorrento, I think I heard from
Mrs. Jersey. Did you find it comfortable?"

"Oh, delightful!" said Dolly with a breath which told much. "Nothing
could be nicer, or lovelier."

"Then you enjoyed life in Italy?"

"Very much. But indeed I enjoyed it everywhere."

"What gave you so much pleasure? I envy you. Now I go all over Europe,
and find nothing particular to hold me anywhere. And I see by the way
you speak that it was not so with you."

"No," said Dolly, half smiling. "Europe was like a great, real
fairyland to me. I feel as if I had been travelling in fairyland."

"Do indulge me and tell me how that was? The novelty, perhaps."

"Novelty is pleasant enough," said Dolly, "but I do not think it was
the novelty. Rome was more fascinating the last week than it was the
first."

"Ah, Rome! there one never gets to the end of the novelties."

"It was not that," said Dolly shaking her head. "I grew absolutely fond
of the gladiator; and Raphael's Michael conquering the dragon was much
more beautiful to me the last time I saw it than ever it was before;
and so of a thousand other things. They seemed to grow into my heart.
So at Venice. The palace of the doges--I did not appreciate it at
first. It was only by degrees that I learned to appreciate it."

"Your taste for art has been uncommonly cultivated!"

"No" said Dolly. "I do not know anything about art. Till this journey I
had never seen much."

"There is a little to see at Brierley," said the lady of the house. "I
should like to show it to you."

"I should like dearly to see it again," said Dolly. "Your ladyship is
very kind. Mrs. Jersey did show me the house once, when we first came
here; and I was delighted with some of the pictures, and the old
carvings. It was all so unlike anything at home."

"At home?" said Lady Brierley enquiringly