compassionate soldo of Giovanna clink reproof to me upon the pavement.
Perhaps that slender note touches something finer than habitual charity in
her middle-aged bosom, for these were songs she says that they used to
sing when she was a girl, and Venice was gay and glad, and different from
now--_veramente, tutt' altro, signor!_

It is through Giovanna's charitable disposition that we make the
acquaintance of two weird sisters, who live not far from us in Calle
Falier, and whom we know to this day merely as the Creatures--
_creatura_ being in the vocabulary of Venetian pity the term for a
fellow-being somewhat more pitiable than a _poveretta_. Our Creatures
are both well stricken in years, and one of them has some incurable
disorder which frequently confines her to the wretched cellar in which
they live with the invalid's husband,--a mild, pleasant-faced man, a
tailor by trade, and of batlike habits, who hovers about their dusky
doorway in the summer twilight. These people have but one room, and a
little nook of kitchen at the side; and not only does the sun never find
his way into their habitation, but even the daylight cannot penetrate it.
They pay about four florins a month for the place, and I hope their
landlord is as happy as his tenants. For though one is sick, and all are
wretchedly poor, they are far from being discontented. They are opulent in
the possession of a small dog, which they have raised from the cradle, as
it were, and adopted into the family. They are never tired of playing with
their dog,--the poor old children,--and every slight display of
intelligence on his part delights them. They think it fine in him to
follow us as we go by, but pretend to beat him; and then they excuse him,
and call him ill names, and catch him up, and hug him and kiss him. He
feeds upon their slender means and the pickings that G. carefully carries
him from our kitchen, and gives to him on our doorstep in spite of us,
while she gossips with his mistresses, who chorus our appearance at such