off to a fetid foreign city notorious for mud and mosquitoes, and
commence capering and grimacing, pouring forth a jugful of ready-made
extravagances, with 'mon fils! mon cher neveu! Dieu!' and similar
fiddlededee. These were matters for women to do, if they chose: women
and Frenchmen were much of a pattern. Moreover, he knew the hotel this
Comte de Croisnel was staying at. He gasped at the name of it: he had
rather encounter a grisly bear than a mosquito any night of his life, for
no stretch of cunning outwits a mosquito; and enlarging on the qualities
of the terrific insect, he vowed it was damnation without trial or
judgement.

Eventually, Mrs. Culling's departure was permitted. He argued, 'Why go?
the fellow's comfortable, getting himself together, and you say the
French are good nurses.' But her entreaties to go were vehement, though
Venice had no happy place in her recollections, and he withheld his
objections to her going. For him, the fields forbade it. He sent hearty
messages to Nevil, and that was enough, considering that the young dog of
'humanity' had clearly been running out of his way to catch a jaundice,
and was bereaving his houses of the matronly government, deprived of
which they were all of them likely soon to be at sixes and sevens with
disorderly lacqueys, peccant maids, and cooks in hysterics.

Now if the master of his fortunes had come to Venice!--Nevil started the
supposition in his mind often after hope had sunk.--Everard would have
seen a young sailor and a soldier the thinner for wear, reclining in a
gondola half the day, fanned by a brunette of the fine lineaments of the
good blood of France. She chattered snatches of Venetian caught from the
gondoliers, she was like a delicate cup of crystal brimming with the
beauty of the place, and making one of them drink in all his impressions
through her. Her features had the soft irregularities which run to