of stately power and pride, the lovely pageant came, passed, and
disappeared under the shining evening sky and the gathering shadows
of "the dim, rich city." I never saw, or expect to see, anything
of its kind so beautiful.

I stay for hours in the gondola, writing my letters or watching the
thousand and one sights of the streets, for I often allow Salemina
and the Little Genius to tread their way through the highways and
byways of Venice while I stay behind and observe life from beneath
the grateful shade of the black felze.

The women crossing the many little bridges look like the characters
in light opera; the young girls, with their hair bobbed in a round
coil, are sometimes bareheaded and sometimes have a lace scarf over
their dark, curly locks. A little fan is often in their hands, and
one remarks the graceful way in which the crepe shawl rests upon
the women's shoulders, remembering that it is supposed to take
generations to learn to wear a shawl or wield a fan.

My favourite waiting-place is near the Via del Paradiso, just where
some scarlet pomegranate blossoms hang out over the old brick walls
by the canal-side, and where one splendid acanthus reminds me that
its leaves inspired some of the most beautiful architecture in the
world; where, too, the ceaseless chatter of the small boys cleaning
crabs with scrubbing-brushes gives my ear a much-needed familiarity
with the language.

Now a girl with a red parasol crosses the Ponte del Paradiso,
making a brilliant silhouette against the blue sky. She stops to
prattle with the man at the bell-shop just at the corner of the