ck mooring-post, at the foot of the steps, toward the
larger canal.

"Perhaps my boat knows of all the gay sights that are waiting for it
in the Grand Canal," the boy thought idly. "It may well know," he
added in his thought; "it has been there times enough."

The Grand Canal is the largest and finest of all the water-ways which
thread the city. It is spanned by three beautiful bridges, and, on
either side, rise the marble palaces of the ancient Venetian nobility;
those rulers of men whose names fill the "Golden Book of Venetian
History."

[Illustration: THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE.
Notice the mooring-posts and the black gondola.]

But Rafael lingered in the gateway. The music of the band was a
promise of something still better. Soon hundreds of gondolas would
gather at the bridge of the Rialto to hear the songs of the
serenaders, and that was what the boy loved best.

As the bells in the square sounded the hour, he rose, reached for the
rope, and pulled his boat toward the stone landing steps. His motions
were alert and decisive, and made him seem a different boy from the
one who had been leaning so carelessly against the post of the
gateway.

Rafael was good friends with his oar, and the little boat, which was
only large enough to seat three comfortably, hurried gladly toward the
lights of the Grand Canal, and the music in the beautiful Piazza of
St. Mark.

Hundreds of black gondolas were moving up and down the canals, manned
by boatmen in white linen, for the night was very warm; and a melody
from an Italian opera, sung in a musical tenor voice, floated from one
of the boats.

"I, also, would sing, if it were not pleasanter to listen," said
Rafael to his boat. Then it occurred to him that it might be most
pleasant of all to find his friend Nicolo and take him to hear the
singers at the Rialto bridge.

He turned toward the steps of the Piazzetta, murmuring as he did so,
"These other boats are also moving toward the Rialto. I must find
Nicolo quickly, or we shall lose our favorite place at the bridge."

The boy tied his boat in the shadow of the steps, and took his way
across the small square into the larger one in front of the Cathedral
of St. Mark.

Numberless columns and pillars surround this square, and each one was
outlined with twinkling golden lights. From every ornament and statue
that grace the cathedral and palaces shone countless numbers of the
fairy flames. The crimson globes of the larger lamps