I mean?"

"Perfectly," he answered.

Then, as she stepped down and went back to her seat: "I'm going home as
passenger," he announced. "We shall have the tide with us and Pietro
won't need my help."

"That's right," said Mrs. Daymond. "We want you over here."

The sun had got low enough to shine in under the flaps of the awning,
and Geof lifted the canvas from its iron rods, and handed it over to
Pietro, who stowed it away, rods and all, in the stern of the gondola.
The world seemed to open up immensely bright and big, and the sky struck
them with the force of a revelation.

"There, I call this grand!" Geof cried, taking possession of the chair.
"I've been feeling like an outcast or a galley-slave, or some such
unlucky wretch, labouring away at the oar, with you two having the pick
of everything inside."

"You seemed depressed!" his mother said, with amused appreciation of his
lament.

They had turned toward home, and were just coming up with the Colonel's
gondola. The men were resting on their oars, while the passengers stood
up to survey the view beyond the jetty.

"You didn't come out far enough to get the swell," said Pauline.

"Yes, we did," May answered. "But we didn't like it; so we came back."

"Miss May was pretty badly frightened," Kenwick observed, with his most
brilliant smile.

"Nonsense!" cried May; "I was no more frightened than anybody else! But
I didn't like it. It felt so horribly big, and made us seem so little."

"And you were perfectly right, Polly," said Uncle Dan, placing his hand
upon the small, gloveless one that lay on his arm. "The sea is no place
for a gondola. I am sure Mrs. Daymond agrees with us."

"I think we both sympathize with May," she answered, glancing with
interest at the charming young face, which was not quite clear of a
certain puzzled disturbance.

Half-an-hour later they rounded the end of the Lido and came in full
sight of the city, its domes and towers grouping themselves in ever
changing perspective against the western sky. They overtook two or three
of the brilliant sails they had passed on their outward way, still
drifting city-ward with the tide. The men had taken to their oars and
were helping the boats along.

As they drew near the poor, denuded island of Santa Elena, where only
the vine-grown Abbey remains, of all its ancient loveliness, a cascade
of lark-notes came pouring down from the sky. They strained their eyes
to catch a glimpse of the birds