GE" 224

"THE SERENATA" 272

"IT SEEMS AS IF THE LAGOONS BELONGED TO THEM THIS EVENING" 316

I

Venice

"Si, Signore!"

The gondola stirred gently, as with a long, quiet breath, and a moment
later it had pushed its way out from among the thronging craft at the
steps of the railway quay, and was gliding with its own leisurely motion
across the sunlit expanse of the broad Canal. As the prow of the slender
black bark entered a narrow side-canal and pursued its way between
frowning walls and under low arched bridges,--as the deep resonant cry
of the gondolier rang out, and an answer came like an echo from the
hidden recesses of a mysterious watery crossway, the spirit of Venice
drew near to the three travellers, in whose minds its strange and
exquisite suggestion was received with varying susceptibility.

To Pauline Beverly, sitting enthroned among the gondola cushions, this
was the fulfilment of a dream, and she accepted it with unquestioning
delight; her sister May, at the bar of whose youthful judgment each
wonder of Europe was in turn a petitioner for approval, bestowed a far
more critical attention upon the time-worn palaces and the darkly
doubtful water at their base; while to Uncle Dan, sitting stiffly
upright upon the little one-armed chair in front of them, Venice, though
a regularly recurrent experience, was also a memory,--a memory fraught
with some sort of emotion, if one might judge by the severe indifference
which the old soldier brought to bear upon the situation.

Colonel Steele was never effusive, yet a careful observer might have
detected in his voice and manner, as he gave his orders to the
gondolier, the peculiar cut-and-dried quality which he affected when he
was afraid of being found out. Careful observers are, however, rare, and
we may be sure that on their first day in Venice his two companions had
other things to think of than the unobtrusive moods of a life-long
uncle.

Suddenly the gondola swung out again upon the Grand Canal, a little
below the Rialto bridge, and again all was light and life and movement.
Steamboats plied up and down with a great puffing and snorting and a
swashing about of the water, gondolas and smaller craft rising and
falling upon their heaving wake; heavily laden barges, propelled by long
poles whose wielders walked with bare brown feet up and down