n? He believed, at the
time, that it was merely the prospect of better acquaintance with the
prettiest and brightest girl it had yet been vouchsafed him to meet. As
he had since heard May remark,--for having once adopted an opinion, she
was fond of testing it in more than one direction,--it is such a comfort
to get hold of anything superlative! He was not aware that the elder
sister, who certainly could not claim a single superlative quality, had
played any part at all in that first impression; yet the thought of her
had gradually come to be the hourly companion of his solitude. And now,
for the first time in his life he found himself luxuriating, not only in
solitude, but in idleness.

When he had been making a desultory sketch, away out toward Malamocco,
or in among the _vignoli_ in the northern lagoon, pausing perhaps, for a
good five minutes, between grassy banks, to listen to the whistle of the
blackbird in the hedge, he felt no imperative call to seize an oar and
double the rate of speed on the homeward way. On the contrary, he found
it a perfectly congenial occupation to lounge among the cushions of the
gondola and let Pietro row him home at his own leisurely rate, while the
two good comrades had a meditative smoke.

It was because Geof was aware that this state of things was abnormal,
that he found it perplexing, and because, much as he enjoyed the
experience itself, he did not relish the sense of having somewhat lost
his bearings, that he was glad to seize upon the clue which he had got
hold of there at the foot of the stone Madonna. Miss Beverly was like
his mother; that was all there was about it. Such a resemblance as that
would make any face linger agreeably in his thoughts.

It had got to be the middle of June, when parish processions are the
order of the day. They were rowing up the Grand Canal, one Sunday
afternoon, Geof and his mother, on their way to the _festa_, which was
timed for the latter part of the day. Pietro and the gondola were in
gala costume, snow-white as to Pietro, and, as to the gondola, the new
brussels carpet of dark blue, to match Pietro's sash and hat-ribbon and
the sea-horse banner floating at the bow. As they passed under the
Rialto, and swung round the great bend of the Canal, Geof observed, in
an unconsciously weighty tone: "Mother, I have made a discovery."

"And that is?"

"Miss Beverly looks like you."

At this simple statement of fact, the face of Geof's listener underw