wonders for her when she is wearied; and Bulagan, her nurse, to take
her to her heart when she is sad.

"And sad she is a lot of the time, they tell me. She sits in her
garden in the dusk, playing her lute, and singing the song of the
Willow branches, which is the saddest love-song in the world. . .

"And why she should be singing a sad love-song, is a mystery, for her
soft, brown beauty is the flower of the world. For there would be
no lack of suitors for her, nor is she the one to refuse love.
The only thing I make of it is that the right hour hasn't come.

"The beauty of Venice jumps to your eyes, but the beauty of this
pulls at your heart. Little brown Golden Bells, in her Chinese
garden, singing the song of the Willow Branches at the close of day
. . .Is that not better nor Venice?"

But he got no word out of Marco Polo, sitting with his chin cupped
in his hands. And that was the finest answer at all, at all. . .



CHAPTER V

The times went by, and Marco Polo busied himself with his daily
affairs, keeping track of the galleasses with merchandise to strange
far-away ports, buying presents for refractory governors who didn't
care for foreign trade in their domains, getting wisdom from the old
clerks, and knowledge from the mariners; in the main, acting as the
son of a great house while the heads of it were away.