She was talking enthusiastically of
Venice, Florence, Pisa, Rome, with occasional flying excursions into
Switzerland and the Tyrol. Once, as she passed, I heard something
murmured low about Botticelli's "Primavera"; when next she went
by it was the Alps from Murren; a third time, again, it was the
mosaics at St. Mark's, and Titian's "Assumption," and the doge's
palace. What so innocent as art, in the moonlight, on the ocean?
At last Bernard paused just opposite where I stood (for they didn't
perceive me), and said very earnestly, "Look here, Melissa,"--he
had called her Melissa almost from the first moment, and she to
prefer it, it seemed so natural,--"look here, Melissa. Do you know,
when you talk about things like that, you make me feel so dreadfully
ashamed of myself."
"Why so, Mr. Hancock?" Melissa asked, innocently.
"Well, when I think what opportunities I've had, and how little I've
used them," Bernard exclaimed, with vehemence, "and then reflect
how few you've got, and how splendidly you've made the best of
them, I just blush, I tell you, Melissa, for my own laziness."
"Perhaps," Melissa interposed, with a grave little air, "if one
had always been brought up among it all, one wouldn't think quite
so much of it.
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