and might have been supposed absorbed by her professional duties.
It proved necessary, however, that she should hover about the
premises in a velvet jacket and a pair of black kid gloves with
one little white button; as also, that she should apply a thick
coating of powder to her face, which had a charming oval and a
sweet weak expression, like that of most of the Venetian maidens,
who, as a general thing--it was not a peculiarity of the land-
lady's niece--are fond of besmearing themselves with flour. You
soon recognise that it is not only the many-twinkling lagoon
you behold from a habitation on the Riva; you see a little of
everything Venetian. Straight across, before my windows, rose the
great pink mass of San Giorgio Maggiore, which has for an ugly
Palladian church a success beyond all reason. It is a success of
position, of colour, of the immense detached Campanile, tipped
with a tall gold angel. I know not whether it is because San
Giorgio is so grandly conspicuous, with a great deal of worn,
faded-looking brickwork; but for many persons the whole place has
a kind of suffusion of rosiness. Asked what may be the leading
colour in the Venetian concert, we should inveterately say Pink,
and yet without remembering after all that this elegant hue
occurs very often. It is a faint, shimmering, airy, watery pink;
the bright sea-light seems to flush with it and the pale
whiteish-green of lagoon and canal to drink it in. There is
indeed a great deal of very evident brickwork, which is never
fresh or loud in colour, but always burnt out, as it were, always
exquisitely mild.

Certain little mental pictures rise before the collector of
memories at the simple mention, written or spoken, of the places
he has loved. When I hear, when I see, the magical name I have