nd the corner under the arcade of the ducal palace,
and almost before they reached the _traghetto_ the shower was stayed and
the sun came out on the lucent water. Peter allowed Miss Dassonville to
give the direction lest she should think it a liberty of him to have
noticed and remembered it, but he added something to it that caused her,
as they swung out into the canal, to enter an expostulation.

"But this is not the way to the Casa Frolli!"

"It's one way; besides, it isn't raining any more, and if you are
thinking of taking a gondola you ought to make a trial trip or two, and
it's worth seeing how the palace looks from the canal."

The rain began again in a little while, whitening the water; the depth
of it blackened to the cloud but the surface frothed like quicksilver
under the steady patter. The awning was up and they were safe against a
wetting, but Peter saw the girl shiver in the slight chill, and looking
at her more attentively he perceived that she might recently have been
ill. The likeness to her mother came out then in spite of her plainness,
the hands, the eyes, the pleasant way of smiling; it was that no doubt
which had set him on the trail of his old dreams. He tried, more for the
purpose of avoiding it than for any curiosity, to remember what he had
ever heard of David Dassonville that would account for his daughter's
teaching school when she evidently wasn't able for it, but he talked of
Mrs. Merrithew.

"I must call on her," he said, "as soon as she will permit me. But tell
me, what business did I do with her husband?"

"It was a mortgage--those poor McGuires, you know, were in such trouble,
and you----"

"Yes, I was always nervous about mortgages. I was bitten by one once.
But dear me, I did not expect to have my youthful indiscretions coming
out like this. What else did she tell you?"

The girl laughed delightedly. "Well, we did rather talk you over. She
said you were such a good son. Even when you were a young man on a
salary your mother had a best black silk and a second best."

"Women are the queerest!" Peter commented at large. "It was always such
a comfort to Ellen that mother had a good silk to be buried in. Now
what is there talismanic about silk?"

"It's evidence," she smiled, "and that's what women require most."

"Well, I hope Mrs. Merrithew will accept it as evidence that I am a
suitable person to take you out in a gondola this evening. You haven't
seen Venice by night?"

"On