The Veiled Lady

d of quays backed by lines of palaces bordering the Grand Canal, dotted with queer gondolas rowed by gondoliers, in queerer hoods of red or black, depending on the guild to which they bel

splashed with the cool shadows of rose-pink oleanders dropping their blossoms into white and green ripples, melting into blue. As for me-I have laid hands on a canal-the Rio Giuseppe-all of it-from the beginni

get back again. On one side stretches a row of rookeries-a maze of hanging clothes, fish-nets, balconies hooded by awnings and topped by nondescript chimneys of all sizes and patterns, with here and there a dab of vermilion and light red, the whole brilliant against a china-blue sky. On the oth

hims, and fancies, this wave space-one moment in a broad laugh coquetting with a bit of blue sky peeping from behind a cloud, its cheeks dimpled with sly undercurrents, the next swept by flurries of little winds, soft as the breath of a child on a mirror; then, when aroused by a passing boat, breaking out into ribbons of color-swirls of twisted doorways, flag

nging over the water, reaching down, holding on by a foot or an arm to the iron rail, are massed the children-millions of children-I never counted them, but still I say millions of children. This has gone on since I first staked out my claim-was a pa

to Loretta, who had lived just five summers when my big gondolier, Luigi, pulled her dripping wet

o be this), and her becoming part of its record is but the sticking of two pins along a chart,-the first marking her entrance at five and the second her exit at sixteen. All the other years of my occupa

ke the boat. Suddenly from out the hum of the children's voices there came a scream vibrant with terror. Then a splash! Then the gondola swayed as if a barca had bumped it, and the next thing I knew Luigi's body made a curve through the air, struck the water, with an eno

a great d

ing boats with sails up,-but still an interloper. Now I became one of the thousand families and the million children. These were all in evidence in less than ten seconds; th

s later in a suit of dry clothes, the property of a fisherman, and of so grotesque a fit, the trousers reaching to his knees and the cuffs of the coat to his elbows, that he set the population in a roar. My Luigi, you might as well know, is six feet and an inch, with the torso of a Greek god and a face that is twin to Colleone's, and, furthermore, is quite a

s the wife of a crab fisherman who had died some years before; the two children and mother were cared for by a brother crab fisherman. His son Francesco, if report were true, was to marry the sister when she turned fifteen, Francesco being four years older. Th

bs, like his fa

a frown. "A poor lot, these crab catchers, Sign

; nor the mother, over whom Luigi also shrugged his shoul

r case, all the essentials of beauty were in evidence: dark, lustrous velvety eyes; dazzling teeth-not one missing; jet-black hair-and such a wealth

up?" I asked her one morning. She was sitting besid

g like my sister I shall go to the priest and get married, and have a

e you picked

ly a little girl. But he will

whatever else occupied her busy head and small hands, and away she would run to the water steps and hold out her arms until Luigi rowed over and lifted her in. She had changed, of course, in these five years, and was still changing, but only as an expanding bud changes. The eyes were the same and so were the teeth-if any had dropped out, newer and better ones had tak

she burst

mouth red as a pomegranate and as enticing, and if above it there burn two eyes that would make a holy man clutch his rosary; and if the flower sways

gins for every other pretty Venetian, and here

to stretch out his claws for Loretta. She and her mother still lived with Francesco's father, who was a widower

She hated Francesco,-hated his father,-hated everybody who wanted her to marry the fisherman. (Luigi, poor fellow, had

d hail a passing barca and step from the gondola to its deck and s

boy two soldi, Signore, to escort her to the lace factory-the boy is sick today and s

Loretta had the