e you will."

The gondolier divined his master's wishes, and by many windings brought
him at last into the Canareggio, to the door of a wonderful palazzo,
which you will admire when you see Venice, for no traveler ever fails to
stop in front of those windows, each of a different design, vying with
each other in fantastic ornament, with balconies like lace-work; to
study the corners finishing in tall and slender twisted columns, the
string-courses wrought by so inventive a chisel that no two shapes are
alike in the arabesques on the stones.

How charming is that doorway! how mysterious the vaulted arcade leading
to the stairs! Who could fail to admire the steps on which ingenious art
has laid a carpet that will last while Venice stands,--a carpet as rich
as if wrought in Turkey, but composed of marbles in endless variety
of shapes, inlaid in white marble. You will delight in the charming
ornament of the colonnades of the upper story,--gilt like those of a
ducal palace,--so that the marvels of art are both under your feet and
above your head.

What delicate shadows! How silent, how cool! But how solemn, too, was
that old palace! where, to delight Emilio and his friend Vendramin, the
Duchess had collected antique Venetian furniture, and employed skilled
hands to restore the ceilings. There, old Venice lived again. The
splendor was not merely noble, it was instructive. The archaeologist
would have found there such models of perfection as the middle ages
produced, having taken example from Venice. Here were to be seen the
original ceilings of woodwork covered with scrolls and flowers in gold
on a colored ground, or in colors on gold, and ceilings of gilt plaster
castings, with a picture of many figures in each corner, with a splendid
fresco in the centre,--a style so costly that there are not two in the
Louvre, and that the extravagance of Louis XIV. shrunk from such
expense at Versailles. On all sides marble, wood, and silk had served as
materials for exquisite workmanship.

Emilio pushed open a carved oak door, made his way down the long,
vaulted passage which runs from end to end on each floor of a Venetian
palazzo, and stopped before another door, so familiar that it made
his heart beat. On seeing him, a lady companion came out of a vast
drawing-room, and admitted him to a study where he found the Duchess on
her knees in front of a Madonna.

He had come to confess and ask forgiveness. Massimilla, in prayer, had
con