ady for duty," said Lois.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE LAGOON OF VENICE.

Towards evening, one day late in the summer, the sun was shining, as
its manner is, on that marvellous combination of domes, arches, mosaics
and carvings which goes by the name of St. Mark's at Venice. The soft
Italian sky, glowing and rich, gave a very benediction of colour; all
around was the still peace of the lagoon city; only in the great square
there was a gentle stir and flutter and rustle and movement; for
thousands of doves were flying about, and coming down to be fed, and a
crowd of varied human nature, but chiefly not belonging to the place,
were watching and distributing food to the feathered multitude. People
were engaged with the doves, or with each other; few had a look to
spare for the great church; nobody even glanced at the columns bearing
St. Theodore and the Lion.

That is, speaking generally. For under one of the arcades, leaning
against one of the great pillars of the same, a man stood whose look by
turns went to everything. He had been standing there motionless for
half an hour; and it passed to him like a minute. Sometimes he studied
that combination aforesaid, where feeling and fancy and faith have made
such glorious work together; and to which, as I hinted, the Venetian
evening was lending such indescribable magnificence. His eye dwelt on
details of loveliness, of which it was constantly discovering new
revelations; or rested on the whole colour-glorified pile with
meditative remembrance of what it had seen and done, and whence it had
come. Then with sudden transition he would give his attention to the
motley crowd before him, and the soft-winged doves fluttering up and
down and filling the air. And, tiring of these, his look would go off
again to the bronze lion on his place of honour in the Piazzetta, his
thought probably wandering back to the time when he was set there. The
man himself was noticed by nobody. He stood in the shade of the pillar
and did not stir. He was a gentleman evidently; one sees that by slight
characteristics, which are nevertheless quite unmistakeable and not to
be counterfeited. His dress of course was the quiet, unobtrusive, and
yet perfectly correct thing, which dress ought to be. His attitude was
that of a man who knew both how to move and how to be still, and did
both easily; and further, the look of him betrayed the habit of travel.
This man had seen so much that he was not moved by