ough the blue sky like a
shower of snow.

The Campanile or bell-tower towers up more than three hundred feet
above the pavement; way up on the tower two bronze statutes stand with
hammers and strikes off the hours. Why is it that the doves pay no
attention to any other hour they may strike but when the hour of two
sounds out, a window on the north side of the square opens and some
grain is thrown out to 'em (the Government throws it to 'em, dretful
good natered to think on't)? But how did them doves know two from
three? I d'no nor Josiah don't. I had provided Tommy with some food
for 'em and they flowed down and lighted on him and Dorothy, who also
fed 'em; it wuz a pretty sight. And Robert Strong thought so too, I
could read it in his eyes as he looked at Dorothy with the pretty
doves on her shoulder and white hands.

I got some sooveneers for the children at Venice, some little ivory
gondolas and photographs, etc., and Miss Meechim and Dorothy got
sights of things, Venetian jewelry, handsome as could be, and Arvilly
got a little present for Waitstill and a jet handkerchief pin for
herself. She mourns yet on the inside and outside, yes, indeed! and I
d'no but she always will.

And as you can git a relic of most everything at some of the shops I
told Josiah I would love to git hold of one of them old rings that the
Doges married the Adriatic with. And if you'll believe it that man
didn't like it; sez he real puggicky:

"I hope you hain't any idee of marryin' the Jonesville creek,
Samantha, because it won't look well in a M. E. sister and pardner."

Jealous of the creek! That's the last thing I ever thought that man
would be jealous on. The idee! I only wanted it out of curiosity.

We visited the Arsenal, another spot where the greatness of Venice in
the past hanted our memory, when she had twenty thousand workmen there
and now not two thousand. But we see queer lookin' things there--suits
of armor, crossbows, helmets. Josiah took quite a fancy to one wore by
Attila, king of the Huns, and wanted to put it on. Good land! his head
went right up into it just as it would into a big coal-scuttle. What a
mind Mr. Attila must have had if his brains wuz accordin' to his
head.

And we see infernal machines, thumb screws, spiked collars, and other
dretful implements of torture like black shadders throwed from the
past. A piece of the boat that the Doge went to his weddin' in when he
married the water wuz interestin'; wedd