puzzling as it was grievous.

"He is doing well, Nanni?"

"Si, Signore, _benissimo_; and yet he loves the gondola and the old
life."

The Colonel drew his brows together as if the statement had not given
him unmixed pleasure. "Do you think he is ever sorry for the education
and the change?" he asked.

"Sorry? Oh, no! His profession is his life. Even here when he ought to
rest, he goes again and again to the Scuola di San Marco, the great
hospital, to see the sick people and talk with the doctors. Signore,"
and Vittorio's voice sank to a stage whisper: "Nanni is writing a book.
It is about the sanitation of the houses."

The gondolier had stepped forward close behind the cushioned seat, and
was stooping, with bended knee, his head almost on a level with the
_padrone's_. Keeping the oar constantly in motion, and with an
occasional deft turn of the wrist to avoid a collision,--for the Grand
Canal was a crowded thoroughfare at this hour,--he nevertheless seemed
to have eyes only for the erect figure and the grizzled head of his old
friend.

"Our benefactor does not permit us to speak to him of what is in our
hearts," he said, in his stately Italian; and again his voice dropped,
and this time to a wonderfully melodious tone: "But the Madonna listens
to us every morning and every evening. We all remember the _padrone_,
even the _piccolo Giovanni_, whom he has never seen."

A look of comical deprecation crossed the face of the passenger, and he
said, rather abruptly: "I hope Nanni is good to the rest of you."

"Si, Signore; Nanni is a good brother; but we are many and he is not
rich. _Ecco!_ The gondola of the Signora Daymond. Will the Signore
speak with her?"

"Not to-day," the Colonel answered, hastily; and in another instant,
before the occupants of the other boat had looked in their direction,
Vittorio had stepped back to his post at the stern, and had given a
twist of the oar that sent the gondola straight across the prow of a
steamboat coming down stream.

"_Lungo!_" he shouted, as peremptorily as if the great puffing
interloper had been a tiny _sandolo_, and the big boat actually did slow
up a bit, while Vittorio swiftly rounded it, thus placing its great hull
between his own and the Signora's gondola.

"You're a good oarsman, Vittorio," the _padrone_ remarked. "I always
said that I should like to cross the ocean with you."

"I would rather the Signore stayed here," Vittorio exclaimed, while a
flashing s