ridiculed."

Then he pushed off from the landing, and the two great columns rose
above their heads in stately fashion.

Edith looked from the winged lion on the top of one to the crocodile
and the figure of St. Theodore on the other. "There are many stone
lions in the city," she said, "but I have seen only one crocodile. Why
is that?"

"The lion is the symbol of St. Mark," replied Rafael, "and must guard
the city, because St. Mark is our patron saint. St. Theodore, who
stands on the crocodile, was our first patron saint, before the body
of St. Mark was brought to Venice and placed in the little church
which once stood where you now see the cathedral."

"Is it the St. Mark who wrote one of the books of the New Testament?"
asked Mrs. Sprague.

"Yes, Signora," replied Rafael.

"We have been into the cathedral many times," said Edith. "Mother
knows every picture and statue inside and out of it."

"It is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the whole world," said
her mother. "Some one has called it a jewel-box, because it contains
so many magnificent gems, precious stones, and golden mosaics; and it
seems so to me. Now that I have seen it, I am ready to leave Venice."

"Oh, Mother," exclaimed the girl, "we haven't begun to see all that I
want to! I must buy some more Venetian glass, and a lantern, and some
flags and banners. I mean to make my room at home look like a bit of
Venice."

Rafael looked pleased. "Our people were making beautiful things in
glass two hundred years before Christopher Columbus found his way to
your country," he said. He had no wish to seem boastful to these
people of a younger nation, so he tried to say it courteously.

But Edith was impolite enough to say, "The men and women in your city
seem to do nothing now but make glass, and carve wood, and weave lace.
In so many hundred years they might have learned a good many new
things, it seems to me."

The boy flushed. "Venice is old, it is true," he answered, "but Italy
is still young." Then he threw back his head and laughed with the
happy laugh of boyhood. "Viva l'Italia!" he cried joyously. "She will
soon be the greatest country in the world."

"Viva Venice!" cried Edith, but Rafael was drawing his boat alongside
a flight of steps, and did not hear her.

"Where is that lame crab of a steamer?" he muttered, looking off into
the lagoon.

"What are we going to do?" questioned Mrs. Sprague anxiously.

"We must go to the Lido in the s