handed the young ladies from the gondola, the Colonel
paused to have a word with the gondolier. The man was standing, hat in
hand, keeping the oar in gentle motion to counteract the force of the
tide, which was setting strongly seaward.

"Si, Signore!" he answered.

"Why!" May exclaimed, "I had forgotten all about the man!"

II

A Venetian Thoroughfare

"To the bankers', Vittorio."

"Si, Signore. Will the Signore go by the Grand Canal?"

"By all means. And don't hurry. There is plenty of time."

"Si, Signore! The bank will wait!"

The little jest fell as soothingly familiar upon the ear of Vittorio's
one passenger as the dip of the oar or the bell of San Giorgio Maggiore
sounding across the harmonising water spaces. And yet the Colonel was
only half aware that every word, every inflection of the little dialogue
had passed between them on just such an afternoon in May five years ago,
and again five years before that, if the truth must be told.

They were passing the charming little Gothic palace known as the House
of Desdemona, and we may be pretty sure that the two little stone girls
that keep watch there upon the corners of the balcony railing, were
reminded by these words that another lustre had slipped by since last
they heard them. If they were as observant as they should have been,
considering that they had nothing to occupy them but the use of their
eyes and ears, they must have noted the fact that while the soldierly
figure of the old gentleman had not grown a whit less erect, the many
wrinkles upon his clean-cut countenance were perceptibly deepened in the
interval. A curious effect of years, those hard-headed little images
must have thought. They could perceive no such change in one another's
countenances, though they had witnessed the passage of several centuries.
But then, the little stone girls had one marked advantage over people of
flesh and blood, for they stopped short off at the shoulders. Their
creator having made no provision for a heart in their constitutions, they
could never grow old,--any more than they could ever have been truly young.

The tide was still going out, and the gondola moved very slowly up
stream. The Colonel was silent, as he had been silent during the
passage of this particular part of the Canal once in five years since
ever so long ago. Presently the gondola, in its leisurely progress, came
opposite a pretty old palace with charming rose windows to give it
dis