A Venetian June

Si

T

Si

nd pillar. The Colonel had looked twice at his watch, for he had an appointment with himself, so to speak, and he proposed to leave the girls to the study of the gold

golden head in deprecation of a possibly misguided admiration. "

close at hand. "I think we may s

ing his watch for the third time, looked up with a twinkle of good understanding, which the appearance of th

ed and discovered that they had b

ed, as they retreated into an angle of

not give the obvious turn to his remark by looking at the two girls as he made it, for neither the beauty of the youthful sceptic nor the quiet distinction of

gallery that spans the space b

good," May remarked,

ered; "and I am sure it is muc

e to persons by lifting it. Yet he took his leave with so good a manner that the Colonel was moved to detain him. As the stran

art of the world," the young man replied. "Where th

more interesting than his own opinions. Then: "Ha

on; for he was a New Englander of the New

going on out there;

not a Westerner!" th

es wish I were. It

rteous leave-taking without the aid of a hat disarmed criticism, and as the Colonel watched the slowly retreating figure, he willingly accorded to the heresy the indulgence due to youthful vagar

ttorio was rowing him swiftly, with the tide, up the Grand Canal. Just as the noon gun

uly say, just as he had hoped to find her, alone and disengaged. Two or three open letters lay upo

lonel S

ame forward to meet him, the soft rustle of her garments filled him with content. He took the extended h

to Venice," she said. "I hop

till come

es

elf: she will be paler than usual; I wonder if she has been ill. And he had found that she had been ill, and there was a fragility and pallor about her that seemed to him quite heart-breaking. Again he had said to himself: she will be wearing crape as in the old times; I wonde

nice anywhere else, and so I come over

but that was a painful fact which he

with me," she added. "T

, deterred by a curious jealousy f

suppose you find it so, si

hing of travelling. We came over in Oc

rds usually sufficed,-five words that meant so much

with you," she said. "We need the

and now, to allow them to be regarded generically. "There are not many girls

you say th

Polly B

s the other

dded, with a quite unforeseen revival of that agreeable self

th much gusto upon the story of their christening. By the t

more about the

and the deep grey of the beautiful eyes,-none of these quiet shades was dull and fixed. A delicate play of light and shadow made them vital, as the grey of the lagoons is vital, when there are clouds before the sun, and a strange, mystic luminousness traverses their tranquil spaces. She had always reminded him of the lag

, and there could be no doubt in the Col

y speak better than I do, after all these years," he declared with delighted self-depreciation, "though perhaps that's not much to brag o

bject, and the Signora, as he lik

too,-not particularly well, though. Her things look right enough, but somehow they don't say much. Firenzo thinks

I should call that young! And t

a contralto little woman, don't you know? The kind that somehow warms the cockles of

s she been about all these yea

her pretty busy. She's the eldest, you know

e sis

father. There's nobody

ough the eyes of the woman he loved. And he found that gracious sharing of his interest a balm to the old wound, and he was soothed and beguiled into a strange new acquiescence. It would

is was only a postponement, a respite. It could not last, this extraordinary, unaccountable resignation. He was not sure that he should approve of it if it did. But, meantime, he had not told her how the girls had

light and color. A steamboat shrieked beneath the window, and the discordant sound hardly seemed an intrusion. And then, suddenly, taking him quite at unawares,

eye fell upon the lithe, vigorous figure coming toward him, he recognised the fact that evasion was no longer possible. An

"I might have known it, too, though I ha

You used to be first-rate to me when I was a litt

like a cork. He knew the Signora was great friends with h

ng them to see

ea early and get a couple of hours on the lagoon in the prett

. He'll keep," and the young man steppe

but he had the tact not to offer him a hand across the plank to th

lf. "Not a bit. Wonder if he takes after his father. The kin

ir uncomprehending outlook upon the world, a sharp pang took him, followed by a strange-w