Florida cast at the painter a swift glance of latent appeal and
intelligence, which he refused, and in the same instant she met him
with another look, as if she now saw him for the first time, and gave
him her hand in greeting. It was a beautiful hand; he could not help
worshipping its lovely forms, and the lily whiteness and softness of
the back, the rose of the palm and finger-tips.

She idly resumed the great Venetian fan which hung from her waist by a
chain. "Don Ippolito has been talking about the vitteggiatura on the
Brenta in the old days," she explained.

"Oh, yes," said the painter, "they used to have merry times in the
villas then, and it was worth while being a priest, or at least an
abbate di casa. I should think you would sigh for a return of those
good old days, Don Ippolito. Just imagine, if you were abbate di casa
with some patrician family about the close of the last century, you
might be the instructor, companion, and spiritual adviser of
Illustrissima at the theatres, card-parties, and masquerades, all
winter; and at this season, instead of going up the Brenta for a day's
pleasure with us barbarous Yankees, you might be setting out with
Illustrissima and all the 'Strissimi and 'Strissime, big and little,
for a spring villeggiatura there. You would be going in a gilded barge,
with songs and fiddles and dancing, instead of a common gondola, and
you would stay a month, walking, going to parties and caffes, drinking
chocolate and lemonade gaming, sonneteering, and butterflying about
generally."

"It was doubtless a beautiful life," answered the priest, with simple
indifference. "But I never have thought of it with regret, because I