"I should like to go," said Claudia; "I love to look off over the lagoons." They turned to leave the choir. "_I_ don't want to go," said Theocritus, holding back. "I want to stay here and see that picture some more; and I'm going to!" This time Miss Marcy did not yield her wish. "Do not come with me," she said to Mr. and Mrs. Lenox; "it is not in the least necessary. I have been up before, and know the way. I will not be gone fifteen minutes." "I really think that he ought not to climb all those stairs," said Mrs. Lenox to her husband, looking at the child, who had gone back to his station before the picture. "Of course not," answered Lenox. Then, after a moment, "I will stay with him," he added; "you go up with Miss Marcy." "I want Aunt Lizzie to stay--not Uncle Stephen!" called the boy, overhearing this, and turning round to scowl at them. "He will not be good with any one but me," said Mrs. Lenox, in a low tone. "You two go up; I will wait for you here." "The question is, Is he ever good, even with her?" said Claudia, following Lenox up the long flight of steps that winds in square turns up, up, to the top of the campanile. "She says he is sometimes very sweet and docile--even affectionate," replied Lenox. "She thinks he has quite a remarkable mind, and will distinguish himself some day if we can only tide his poor, puny little body safely over its childish weakness, and give him a fair start." "She is very fond of him." "Yes; his mother was her dearest friend, his father her only brother." Claudia considered that she had now given sufficient time to this subject (not an interesting one), and they talked of other things, but in short sentences, for they were still ascending. Twice she stopped to rest for a minute or two; then Lenox came down a step, and stood beside her. There was no danger; still, if a person should be seized with giddiness, the thought of the near open well in the centre, going darkly down, was a dizzy one. At the top they had the view: wide green flatness towards the east, northeast, southeast, with myriad gleaming, silvery channels; the Lido and the soft line of the Adriatic beyond; towns shining whitely in the north; to the west, Venice, with its long bridge stretching to the mainland; in port, at their feet, a large Italian man-of-war; on the south side, the point of the Giudecca. "'A Saint-Blaise, a la Zuecca, Vous etiez bien aise; A Saint-Blaise, a la Zuecca, Nous etions bien la!'" quoted Claudia. "I chant it because I have just discovered that the Zuecca means the Giudecca yonder." "What is the verse?" said Lenox. "Don't you know it? It is Musset." "I have read but little, Miss Marcy." "You have not had _time_ to read," said Claudia, with a shade of emphasis; "your time has been given to better things." "Yes, to iron rails!" "To energy and to duty," she answered. Then she turned the subject, and talked of the tints on the water.