nts, with hands clasped upon the
breast, and head bowed beneath its floating aureole of stars. Vittorio,
too, stood with his eyes fixed upon the benignant face, and perhaps an
_ave_ in his heart if not on his lips.

Presently Pauline said, softly: "You were right."

"I was sure you would think so. It's only once in a while that one knows
exactly what is good for one; but then,--_one knows!_"

"Did you ever notice the inscription on the pedestal?" he asked, after
a moment. "Hardly anybody ever does."

"Yes; _Decus et praesidium_," Pauline read.

"For grace and protection," Geoffry translated. "Isn't that pretty?"

They went inside the _felze_ again, without giving any directions to the
gondolier, and Vittorio, delightedly equal to the occasion, rowed on,
through intricate, winding ways, with many a challenging _sta-i!_ and
_premi-o!_ and out across the Giudecca Canal. Neither Geoffry nor
Pauline was disposed to talk, yet neither of them felt the silence
oppressive. After a while they found themselves floating far out on the
lagoon beyond San Giorgio. The steady pulse of the oar went on, and the
light grew in sky and water.

"See how clear the Euganean hills are," Pauline said, looking out
through the little window to those deep-blue pyramids, rising beyond the
wide, opaline waters.

Geof, who was again sitting in the little chair, came down on one knee,
to bring his eyes on a level with the window, and, steadying himself
with his hand on the tufted cord, looked forth and saw the first ray of
sunlight break through the clouds and gild the waiting waters. And then
he turned from that glistening light and looked into Pauline's face.

The gathering brightness of the world outside seemed only to deepen the
shadow and the sheltering privacy of the low, arching roof above their
heads; the rhythmic throb of the oar seemed to grow stronger and more
imperative; the onward impulse of it seized and mastered him. He had
meant to say so many things, to urge so many reasons, to make such
humble entreaties. But, looking into that tender, gracious face, one
thought alone possessed him, and he only said: "Pauline, I love you!"

Then a wonderful light came into the face he loved, and she answered, as
simply as a little child: "I know it, Geoffry!"

* * * * *

"It seems as if the lagoons belonged to them, this evening, eh, Polly?"

Uncle Dan and May were standing in the balcony, watching the rece