“Just to think that all the floor of St. Mark’s is in marble!” said she. “Why, it seems almost a shame, doesn’t it? I’m sure there’s not a cathedral in England that’s got such a grand floor, and St. Mark’s, so you said--didn’t you, Dora?--was only Roman Catholic?”
“Well, well, mother,” said Mr. Osborne, “it’s the Church of the country, you see, just as the English Church is ours. You’d think more of the Roman, if you’d been brought up to it. But I’m surprised at their letting the floor get into that state: it was all ups and downs, and I’m sure I scarcely knew where I should be setting my foot next. So dark it was, too, that one couldn’t see as much as one would like. If I were them, I should send for some good English architect as knows when a building’s safe, and when it isn’t, and make him cut half a dozen sensible windows somewhere, or perhaps take down one of them domes, and put in a glass roof to it instead. Five domes there are, for I counted them, and that’s beyond all reason.”
Dora felt that this was too much for her: simply she could not think of any reply whatever. If somebody proposed putting a glass dome in St. Mark’s, what answer was possible? But there was no need for one. Mrs. Osborne instantly joined in again.
“And never did I think to see such shops in Venice,” she said. “Why, there was electric fittings at one I passed, beautiful they were, with nymphs and such-like holding up the globes, the same as you might get in the most superior shops in town. And I need never have brought out stationery with me, for there was a stationer’s there as I could have bought the best cream-laid at. And not expensive either, if you recollect that a _lira_ is but tenpence, though its strange to have your silver coins worth tenpence instead of a shilling. It wants a deal of thinking back into pounds and shillings.”
“They seem to have a notion of building, too,” said Mr. Osborne. “I’m sure that great square tower they were building was as solid a piece of work as you could find anywhere. And to think that the original had stood there five hundred years. How it takes you back!”
“What did I tell you?” he said. “Didn’t I say the mater and pater would like Venice near as much as you do?”