crowd. On another balcony, a lady sat and knitted with crimson yarn; and
at the window of still another house, a damsel now looked out upon the
square, and now gave a glance into the room, in the evident direction of a
mirror. Venetian neighbors have the amiable custom of studying one
another's features through opera-glasses; but I could not persuade myself
to use this means of learning the mirror's response to the damsel's
constant "Fair or not?" being a believer in every woman's right to look
well a little way off. I shunned whatever trifling temptation there was in
the case, and turned again to the campo beneath--to the placid dandies
about the door of the caffe; to the tide of passers from the Merceria; the
smooth-shaven Venetians of other days, and the bearded Venetians of these;
the dark-eyed, white-faced Venetian girls, hooped in cruel disproportion
to the narrow streets, but richly clad, and moving with southern grace;
the files of heavily burdened soldiers; the little policemen loitering
lazily about with their swords at their sides, and in their spotless
Austrian uniforms.

As the spring advances in Venice, and the heat increases, the expansive
delight with which the city hails its coming passes into a tranquiler
humor, as if the joy of the beautiful season had sunk too deeply into the
city's heart for utterance. I, too, felt this longing for quiet, and as
San Bartolomeo continued untouched by it, and all day roared and thundered
under my windows, and all night long gave itself up to sleepless youths
who there melodiously bayed the moon in chorus, I was obliged to abandon
San Bartolomeo, and seek calmer quarters where I might enjoy the last
luxurious sensations of the spring-time in peace.

Now, with the city's lapse into this tranquiler humor, the promenades
cease. The facchino gives all his leisure to sleeping in the sun; and in
the mellow afternoons there is scarcely a space of six feet square on the