shore to
shore, resonant in the brilliant atmosphere, quarrels softened to
melodies across the water, cries of the gondoliers telling of ceaseless
motion, the constant lap and plash of the wavelets and the drip of the
oars making a soothing undertone of content.

From time to time staccato notes of delight added a distinct jubilant
quality to this symphony, heralding the arrival of some group of Church
dignitaries from one or other of the seven principal parishes of Venice,
gorgeous in robes of high festival and displaying the choicest of
treasures from sacristies munificently endowed, as was meet for an
ecclesiastical body to whom belonged one half of the area of Venice,
with wealth proportionate.

Frequent delegations from the lively crowd of the populace--flashing
with repartee, seemly or unseemly, as they gathered close to the door
just under the marble slab with its solemn appeal to reverence,
"Rispettati la Casa di Dio"--penetrated into the Frari to see where the
more pleasure could be gotten, as also to claim their right to be there;
for this pageant was for the people also, which they did not forget, and
their good-humored ripple of comment was tolerant, even when most
critical. But outside one could have all of the festa that was worth
seeing, with the sunshine added,--the glorious sunshine of this November
day, cold enough to fill the air with sparkle,--and the boys, at least,
were sure to return to the free enjoyment impossible within.

A group of young nobles, in silken hose and velvet mantles, were met
with ecstatic approval and sallies deftly personal. Since the beginning
of the Council of Trent, which was still sitting, philosophy had become
the mode in Venice, and had grown to be a topic of absorbing interest by
no means confined to Churchmen; and young men of fashion took courses of
training in the latest and most intellectual accomplishment.

Confraternities of every order were arriving in stately processions,
their banners borne before them by gondoliers gaudy and awkward in
sleazy white tunics, with brilliant cotton sashes--habiliments which
possessed a singular power of relieving these sun-browned sons of the
lagoon of every vestige of their native grace. On such days of Church
festival--and these alone--they might have been mistaken for peasants of
some prosaic land, instead of the graceful, free-born Venetians that
they were, as, with no hint of their natural rhythm of motion, they
filed in cr