r ever and ever booming--and the low warning cry of the
gondoliers, there was nothing which spoke of life, certainly not here in
the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. There were no horses clattering over the
stone pavements, no trams, no omnibuses; the stillness which was of
peace lay over all things. And some of this had entered Kitty's heart.
She was not deeply read, but nevertheless she had her share of poetical
feeling. And to her everything in the venerable city teemed with
unexpressed lyric. What if the Bridge of Sighs was not true, or the fair
Desdemona had not dwelt in a palace on the Grand Canal, or the Merchant
had neither bought nor sold in the shadow of the Rialto bridge?
Historians are not infallible, and it is sometimes easier and pleasanter
to believe the poets.

But for one thing the hour would have been perfect. Kitty, ordinarily
brave and cheerful, was very lonesome and homesick. Tears sparkled in
her eyes and threatened to fall at any moment. It was all very well to
dream of old Venice; but when home and friends kept intruding
constantly! The little bank-account was so small that five hundred would
wipe it out of existence. And now she would be out of employment till
the coming autumn. The dismal failure of it all! She had danced, sung,
spoken her lines the very best she knew how; and none had noticed or
encouraged her. It was a bitter cup, after all the success at home. If
only she could take it philosophically; like La Signorina! She shut her
eyes. How readily she could see the brilliant, noisy, friendly Broadway,
the electric signs before the theaters, the gay crowds in the
restaurants! It was all very fine to see Europe on a comfortable letter
of credit, but to see it under such circumstances as these, that was a
different matter. To live in this evil-smelling old tenement, with
seldom any delicacy to eat, a strange jabber-jabber ringing in one's
ears from morning till night, and to wait day after day for that letter
from home, was not a situation such as would hearten one's love of
romance. The men had it much easier; they always do. There was ever some
place for a man to go; and there were three of them, and they could talk
to one another. But here, unless La Signorina was about--and she had an
odd way of disappearing--she, Kitty, had to twiddle her thumbs or talk
to herself, for she could understand nothing these people, kindly enough
in their way, said to her.

She opened her eyes again, and this ti