ent
one of those subtle changes of expression which the Colonel, in an
inspired moment, had likened to the play of light upon the waters of the
lagoon. For, being gifted with intuition, unhampered by the more
laborious processes of the manly intellect, Mrs. Daymond instantly
perceived that Geof had confessed more than he was himself aware.

She did not reply at once; to her, too, appeared the face of Pauline
Beverly, as unlike her own, she thought, as well might be, and
infinitely more attractive to her for that. Yes, there was only one
thing that could possibly make them seem alike to Geof. She glanced at
the face beside her, so sound, so vigorous, so magnanimous, as it seemed
to her partial eyes. He was gazing straight ahead, with the direct look
that his mother liked. He did not seem impatient for an answer; he had
rather the appearance of being pleasantly absorbed in his own thoughts.
It had evidently never once occurred to him to consider, in this
connection, how often he had declared that he should never lose his
heart until he had found a girl who was like his mother.

For a moment she was tempted to remind him of it,--but only for a
moment. For Geof's mother was not the woman to take unfair advantage of
a defenceless position, even where her own son was concerned. So she
only said, after an interval of silence that Geof had scarcely noticed:
"I am glad you think us alike, for I have never met a young girl who was
as sympathetic to me as Pauline Beverly."

"Sympathetic! That's it; that hits her off exactly!" Geof declared; and
then, with an accession of spirits which rendered him suddenly
loquacious, "And I say, Mother!" he exclaimed, "what a jolly old boy the
Colonel is! I just wish you could have heard him fire up the other day,
when Kenwick got off one of his cynicisms at the expense of Abraham
Lincoln. Tell you what, the sparks flew! Oliver was up a tree like a
cat!--Hullo! There's the flag-ship!" he interrupted his flow of words to
announce, as they came in sight of San Geremia.

The procession, or the component parts of it, not yet reduced to order,
was just issuing from the church; priests and choristers in their gay
vestments, huge candles, flaring bravely in the face of the sun,
brilliant banners and gaudy images, all in a confused mass, and the
people crowding on the flagged _campo_ before the church. Vittorio's
gondola was disappearing down the broad Canareggio Canal, and Pietro
needed no bidding t