, lost to sight in the dazzling ether,
and as they looked, one tiny creature, with wings outspread, came
singing down to earth.

The gondolas were nearing home, when Geof asked abruptly: "How did you
like it, Miss Beverly,--being caught in the ocean swell?"

"I agree with May that it was rather solemn and awful," she answered;
and then, with a slightly deepening colour: "but--I liked it."

IX

By-ways of Venice

"I say, Geof; isn't that Colonel Steele's gondola over there?"

"Why, yes!" Geof cried, with mock surprise; "how clever of you to see
it! And, I say, Oliver, don't you think that looks a little like the
tower of San Giorgio? Red, you know; rather marked, eh?"

The two young men were coming home from an early sketching-bout, as was
evident from a glance at the gondola, which was distinctly in undress.
Old Pietro knew better than to carry his best cushions and brasses on
such occasions; nor did he display the long, black broadcloth,--the
_strassino_--which gives such distinction to a gondola, falling in ample
folds from the carved back of the seat, and hiding the rougher finish of
the stern. Under the awning, on the very rusty and dilapidated
cushions, sat Kenwick, and beside him, face up, was an oil-sketch of a
half-grown boy, sitting at the prow of a fishing-boat, dangling his bare
brown legs over the water, which gave back a broken reflection of the
bony members. A red sail, standing out in full sunshine, furnished the
background to the figure, but somehow, the interest centred in the thin
legs, which the boy himself was regarding with studious approval. The
legs were so extremely well drawn that one did not wonder at their
owner's satisfaction in them.

"Pity you can't paint as well as you can chaff," the artist observed,
glancing from his own clever sketch to his friend's block, which was
leaning, face inward, against the side of the boat.

Geof was lolling on the steps, his legs somewhat entangled among the
easels, paint-boxes, and the like that cumbered the floor of the boat,
one arm resting on the deck of the prow. Like many athletic men, he had
a gift for looking outrageously lazy. At Kenwick's retort, he turned
from the contemplation of San Giorgio, knocked the ashes out of his
pipe, and folding his hands behind his head, bestowed an amiable grin
upon his astute friend. He wondered just why Kenwick found it worth
while to dissemble.

"The best thing _you_ ever did was that poppy sketc