mile lit up his handsome face; "I would rather the Signore
took a little palace and stayed here in Venice!"

Before the Signore had had time to give this time-honoured proposition
the consideration which it merited, the gondola was lying alongside the
steps at the bankers' door, and his attention was distracted by a very
ragged, but seraphically beautiful urchin, who was excitedly wriggling
his body through the railing of the adjoining ferry-landing, with a view
to pressing his services upon the foreign gentleman. His efforts were
finally successful, and when, a few minutes later, the Colonel emerged
from the doorway, he found his entry into the gondola relieved of all
supposititious perils by the application of five very brown bare toes to
the gunwale. As he placed his penny in the tattered hat of his small
preserver, he bestowed upon him a smile so benignant that all the rival
ragamuffins assembled upon the ferry-landing took heart of hope and
shouted, as one boy: "_Un soldino, Signor! Un soldino!_"

Vittorio, with a look of superb scorn, calculated to convince the
uninitiated that he himself had never been a Venetian ragamuffin, gave
three long strokes of the oar, which sent the gondola far out upon the
Canal, well beyond the reach of such importunities.

"To the hotel, Signore?"

"Yes; the young ladies will be ready to go out by this time. They are my
nieces, Vittorio."

"And is it their first visit in Venice?"

"Yes; we have spent the winter in Italy, and we left the best for the
last."

"The Signore still loves Venice?"

"Better than any spot in the world. We will take the short cut home,
Vittorio."

Then Vittorio, with the deep joy which may hide in the hearts of other
men, but never shines in full radiance upon any but an Italian face,
turned the gondola into the same narrow _rio_ through which he had rowed
his passengers from the station earlier in the day.

The Colonel had caught the flash in the dark face, and his own
countenance had assumed an answering mobility. The tension of his first
hours in Venice was apt to yield, though not usually as early as this.
But then, he had never before had the pleasure of his two precious
Pollys in anticipation. As the gondola drew near a certain stone bridge
guarded by an iron railing, the sight of a woman in a sulphur shawl,
lingering there to speak with a neighbour, gave him a reminiscent sense
of amused gratification.

Presently they came round in front of