"Suppose we take a gondola and go?"

"Now? What is there?"

"An old church."

"There are old churches all over. The thing is to find a new one."

"You prefer the new ones?"

"Just for the rarity," said Tom, smiling.

"I do not believe you have studied the old ones yet. Do you know the
mosaics in St. Mark's?"

"I never study mosaics."

"And I'll wager you have not seen the Tintorets in the Palace of the
Doges?"

"There are Tintorets all over!" said Tom, shrugging his shoulders
wearily.

"Then have you seen Murano?"

"The glass-works, yes."

"I do not mean the glass-works. Come along--anywhere in a gondola will
do, such an evening as this; and we can talk comfortably. You need not
look at anything."

They entered a gondola, and were presently gliding smoothly over the
coloured waters of the lagoon; shining with richer sky reflections than
any mortal painter could put on canvas. Not long in silence.

"Where have you been, Tom, all this while?"

"I told you, everywhere!" said Tom, with another shrug of his
shoulders. "The one thing one comes abroad for, you know, is to run
away from the winter; so we have been doing that, as long as there was
any winter to run from, and since then we have been running away from
the summer. Let me see--we came over in November, didn't we? or
December; we went to Rome as fast as we could. There was very good
society in Rome last winter. Then, as spring came on, we coasted down
to Naples and Palermo. We staid at Palermo a while. From there we went
back to England; and from England we came to Switzerland. And there we
have been till I couldn't stand Switzerland any longer; and I bolted."

"Palermo isn't a bad place to spend a while in."

"No;--but Sicily is stupid generally. It's all ridiculous, Philip.
Except for the name of the thing, one can get just as good nearer home.
I could get _better_ sport at Appledore last summer, than in any place
I've been at in Europe."

"Ah! Appledore," said Philip slowly, and dipping his hand in the water.
"I surmise the society also was good there?"

"Would have been," Tom returned discontentedly, "if there had not been
a little too much of it."

"Too much of it!"

"Yes. I couldn't stir without two or three at my heels. It's very kind,
you know; but it rather hampers a fellow."

"Miss Lothrop was there, wasn't she?"

"Of course she was! That made all the trouble."

"And all the sport too; hey, Tom? Things usually are two-sided