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Scores of gondolas were moving up and down, some with the black 'felse,'
some without, and in the latter there were beautiful women, whose
sun-dyed hair shone resplendent under the thin embroidered veils that
loosely covered it. They wore silk and satin of rich hues, and jewels,
and some were clad in well-fitting bodices that were nets of thin gold
cord drawn close over velvet, with lawn sleeves gathered to the fore-arm
and the upper-arm by netting of seed pearls. Beside some of them sat
their husbands or their fathers, in robes and mantles of satin and silk,
or in wide coats of rich stuff, open at the neck; bearded men,
straight-featured, and often very pale, wearing great puffed caps set
far back on their smooth hair, their white hands playing with their
gloves, their dark eyes searching out from afar the faces of famous
beauties, or, if they were grey-haired men, fixed thoughtfully before
them.

Overall the evening light descended like a mist of gold, reflected from
the sculptured walls of palaces, where marble columns and light
traceries of stone were dyed red and orange and almost purple by the
setting sun, and nestling among the carved beams and far-projecting
balconies of wooden houses that overhung the canal, gilding the water
itself where the broad-bladed oars struck deep and churned it, and swept
aft, and steered with a poising, feathering backstroke, or where tiny
waves were dashed up by a gondola's bright iron stem. Slowly the water
turned to wine below, the clear outlines of the palaces stood out less
sharply against the paling sky, the golden cloudlets, floating behind
the great tower of Saint Mark's presently faded to wreaths of delicate
mist. The bells rung out from church and monastery, far and near, till
the air was filled with a deep music, telling all Venice that the day
was done.

Then the many voices that had echoed in greeting and in laughter, from
boat to boat, were hushed a moment, and almost every man took off his
hat or cap, the robed Councillor and the gondolier behind him; and also
a good number of the great ladies made the sign of the cross and were
silent a while. It was the hour when Venice puts forth her stealing
charm, when the terrible distinctness of her splendour grows gentle and
almost human, and the little mystery of each young life rises from the
heart to hold converse with the sweet, mysterious all. Through the long
day the palaces look down consciously at themselves, mirro