, OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES
 
 WITCH WINNIE 
 IN VENICE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE ALCHEMIST'S STORY 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZABETH W. CHAMPNEY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "WITCH WINNIE," "WITCH WINNIE'S MYSTERY," 
 "WITCH WINNIE IN HOLLAND," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HURST & COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, BY 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, ign. BY 
 A. L. CHATTERTON COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAOS 
 
 I. JUST A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGIN- 
 NING, 1 
 
 II. A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE, ... 11 
 
 III. FIRST DAYS IN VENICE, .... 27 
 
 IV. THE CLOSED DOOR, . . . " . . .38 
 V. ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. . 54 
 
 VI. ANGELO ZANELLI'S SECRET, ... 82 
 
 VII. THE GOTHIC PALACES, 95 
 
 VIII. ON THE LAGOONS, ".Ill 
 
 IX. THE VENETIAN PAINTERS, . . . .139 
 
 X. A FESTA, 166 
 
 XL VIOLANTE TWO ON A BALCONY, . . 182 
 XII. A RAY OF LIGHT THE RENAISSANCE 
 
 PALACES .202 
 
 XIII. A MODERN ALCHEMIST, 229 
 
 XIV. C.ESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE, . . .246 
 XV. SHREDS AND PATCHES, . . . . .267 
 
 2128830
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " SHREDS and Patches" is the title of the 
 last chapter of the present volume ; and the 
 author is aware that the entire book with its 
 scraps of history " cut out of whole cloth ;" its 
 numerous quotations ; its old characters famil- 
 iar in former stories ; its personal impressions, 
 theories, and moral reflections ; its endeavor to 
 be instructive and yet amusing ; and all this 
 held together by the most transparent film of 
 plot is but " a thing of shreds and patches." . 
 
 My only apology is that this is exactly the 
 process employed in the manufacture of the 
 finest point applique lace. It is the work of 
 many hands. The tiny flowers may have been 
 cut from other and more antique specimens. 
 They are " applied" on a web of cheaper ma- 
 chine-made net, or united by brides or tiny 
 lacets, and bordered more or less elaborately, 
 while the spaces between the sprigs and flow- 
 ers were filled in with various kinds of stitches.
 
 vi INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Then when the pattern is complete comes the 
 more mechanical and laborious task of uniting 
 all together by a stitch called ''assemblage" 
 or " fine joining." 
 
 This assemblage has been my work, and I 
 have not found it tedious, for the applique 
 flowers, the work of other hands which I have 
 introduced, have been the part that I have 
 loved and admired ; and they have seemed to 
 fit themselves into new patterns, so that it has 
 needed no ingenuity of mine to arrange them. 
 And so I offer you the finished web, making no 
 claim for originality, no other plea for the 
 heterogeneous character of the work. 
 
 The historical background which I have 
 taken is that of the Italian Renaissance, on a 
 few of whose brilliant names I have endeavored 
 to flash a side light : 
 
 " The epoch ends, the world is still, 
 The age has talked and worked its fill, 
 The famous orators have shone, 
 The famous poetfl sung and gone, 
 The famous men of war have fought, 
 The famous speculators thought, 
 The famous players, sculptors wrought, 
 The famous painters filled their wall, 
 The famous critics judged it all.
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vii 
 
 And in the after silence sweet 
 
 Now strifes are hushed, our ears doth meet 
 
 Ascending pure the bell-like fame 
 
 Of this or that down-trodden name, 
 
 Delicate spirits pushed away 
 
 In the hot press of the noon day. 
 
 On that wide plain, now wrapt in gloom, 
 
 Where many a splendor finds its tomb, 
 
 Many spent fames and fallen mights, 
 
 The ohe or two immortal lights 
 
 Rise slowly up into the sky 
 
 To shine there everlastingly." 
 
 Such were many of the Venetian painters of 
 this period, such the gentle architect Sanso- 
 vino. That the student may have a distinct 
 idea of the chronological sequence of events, I 
 give here the dates of birth and death of some 
 of the personages mentioned in the story, and 
 the beginning and end of the pontificates of 
 three of the Popes : 
 
 Giovanni Bellini born 1437, died 1516. 
 
 PalmaVecchio " 1480, " 1528. 
 
 Giorgione " 1477, " 1511. 
 
 Titian " 1477, " 1576. 
 
 Tintoretto " 1518, " 1594. 
 
 Paul Veronese " 1528, " 1588. 
 
 Sansovino " 1479, " 1570. 
 
 Bembo " 1470, " 1547.
 
 Till INTRODUCTION. 
 
 POPES. 
 
 Alexander V. (Rodrigo Borgia) from 1492 to 1503, 
 
 Julius II. (De Rovere) " 1503 " 1513. 
 
 Leo X. (Giovanni de Medici) " 1513 " 1522- 
 
 The old alchemist Giovanni Zanelli is entirely 
 a fictitious character ; and the plot, supposed 
 to have been planned for his rescue by Titian 
 and his friends, has, of course, no foundation in 
 history. 
 
 The briefest residence in Venice sets one to 
 dreaming of the olden time. It is all so real, 
 so present. There is no place where the pres- 
 ent is so unreal, the actual so out of. place. 
 The old senators look out immortally upon us 
 from the canvases of Titian, and seem to re- 
 proach us for taking liberties with their city 
 and invading their palaces. The very hotels 
 were the homes of the illustrious and noble of 
 other days. The Royal Hotel Danieli, on the 
 Rlva Degli Schiavoni, much frequented by 
 English and Americans, was built by the Dan- 
 dolos in the fourteenth century, and was suc- 
 cessively the palace of the Mocenigos, the Ber- 
 nardi, and the Nani. Our own hotel, opposite 
 the Salute, was the ancient home of the 
 Zuchelli ; and every tourist has a sense of
 
 INTRODUCTION, IX 
 
 proprietorship (at least as far as having once 
 been its guest) in some palace on the Grand 
 Canal. But the author imagines her friends to 
 have more than a tourist's transitory interest 
 in Venice in her art, her buildings, her his- 
 tory, and her people. And so she invites her 
 reader (as Lord Houghton did his), and as An- 
 gelo might have asked Tib, to see the city. 
 
 " Not with the fancy's flashing play, 
 
 The traveller's vulgar theme, 
 Where following objects chase away 
 The moment's dazzling dream 
 
 " Not thus art thou content to see 
 
 The city of my love, 
 Whose beauty is a thought to me 
 
 All mortal thoughts above ; 
 And pass in dull, unseemly haste, 
 
 Nor sight nor spirit clear, 
 As if the first bewildering taste 
 
 Were all the banquet here 1 
 
 " When the proud sea for Venice' sake 
 
 Itself consents to wear 
 The semblance of a land-locked lake 
 
 Inviolably fair 
 Surely may we to similar calm 
 
 Our noisy lives subdue, 
 And bare our bosoms to such balm 
 
 As God has given to few.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Thou knowest this, thou lingerest here, 
 
 Rejoicing to remain ; 
 The plashing oars fall on thy ear 
 
 Like a familiar strain. 
 Come out upon the broad Lagoon, 
 
 Come for the hundredth time, 
 Our thoughts shall make a pleasant 
 
 : )ur words a worthy rhyme ; 
 And thickly round us we will set 
 
 Such visions as were seen 
 By Tizian and by Tintoret 
 
 And dear old Giambellin."
 
 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 JUST A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 F course it was all 
 Winnie's fault, only 
 one of her whimsi- 
 cal pranks, but it 
 brought about a 
 long train of misun- 
 derstandings which 
 might have separat- 
 ed forever two very 
 congenial people, 
 had not but really 
 one cannot tell an 
 
 entire story in a single sentence. 
 
 While Winnie was still in Holland, Adelaide, 
 
 who, it will be remembered, had married Pro-
 
 2 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 fessor Waite, arrived with her husband, and 
 persuaded Winnie to spend the winter with 
 them in Venice, where Tib, who had laid by a 
 little money of her own earning, agreed to meet 
 them. The four took the apartemente sig- 
 norile, or main floor in a palace on the Grand 
 Canal. Professor Waite had received an order 
 to prepare some mural paintings for a public 
 building in America, and the lofty ball-room of 
 the palace made an excellent studio in which to 
 paint these great canvases. They had timed 
 their meeting so exactly that they were scarce- 
 ly settled before Tib arrived, and all began to 
 work with enthusiasm. Winnie and Tib had 
 rooms whose balcony looked up toward the 
 Rialto Bridge and down toward the Church of 
 the Salute. Professor Waite was as kind and 
 helpful as in the old days ; and they took their 
 studies to him for criticism. They made fre- 
 quent gondola trips to interesting spots for 
 sketching, and Adelaide was always ready to 
 accompany them to the historic places which 
 they knew so well already from report, but 
 which they were eager to see with their own 
 eyes. There was so much to explore, so many 
 new sensations waiting on every hand, that it
 
 A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 3 
 
 was some little time before Winnie set her 
 palette ; but Tib, who grudged every moment 
 for her art, and felt that all these glorious hours 
 of privilege were fast stealing away, began to 
 work from the outset. There was one weekly 
 interruption into which she was drawn, out of 
 deference to Adelaide. The Waites speedily 
 gathered about them a coterie of friends, and 
 every Thursday afternoon the great canvases 
 were moved back, rugs were spread down, and 
 there was an informal reception. The friends 
 who came were chiefly members of the resident 
 American colony, with an occasional passing 
 tourist, and, as they became better acquainted, 
 a sprinkling of the Italian element. 
 
 Tib rebelled against this evening " wasted" 
 in society. " I did not come to Venice to see 
 people, but to see Venice," she said to Win- 
 nie. " I would rather have a building like the 
 Doge's Palace talk to me than to listen to the 
 twaddle and commonplaces of ordinary so- 
 ciety." 
 
 " That old ball-room looks as if it could say 
 a thing or two 51 it were so minded," Winnie 
 had replied. " Sit on the divan in the corner 
 and study the frescoes on the ceiling and the
 
 4 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 old portraits on the wall. They * could a tale 
 unfold,' and perhaps they will to you." 
 
 It was here that Winnie had left her for a 
 few moments on their first Thursday, seated 
 quite by herself, listening with amused scorn to 
 the mingled stream of three conversations 
 which drifted in upon her, and quite unaware 
 that a young man in one of the groups, whom 
 a vivacious girl was endeavoring to entertain, 
 was regarding her with interest. 
 
 " What a picture that girl with the Madonna 
 face makes, with her calm, statuesque profile 
 outlined against those Oriental hangings !" he 
 said to his companion. 
 
 The girl had just made a lively remark which 
 he had entirely missed, and she looked at Tib, 
 a little piqued by his admiration, and replied 
 doubtfully : " Yes ; but don't you think it a lit- 
 tle affected to assume that absorbed, beatific 
 air when one is in company ? She looks a trifle 
 posed, it seems to me as though she were 
 quite conscious of the effect she is creating." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" the young man asked. 
 "Now, to me her attitude is delightfully un- 
 conscious. I rather like her being silent, too. 
 A silent woman usually says something worth
 
 A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 5 
 
 listening to when she does speak, and affords a 
 refreshing contrast to the glib chatterer who 
 rattles off a mess of nonsense on all occa- 
 sions." 
 
 A look of rage shot across the girl's face. 
 The young man, with all his culture, was a 
 trifle oblivious ; and it had not occurred to him 
 that his remarks might have a personal applica- 
 tion. 
 
 " I am willing to wager that when that girl 
 next opens her mouth it will be to make some 
 such sententious observation as ' I am awfully 
 hungry ! ' ' said the angry young woman. 
 *' Those spiritual, intellectual faces often be- 
 long to very sordid or even volatile natures. ' ' 
 
 "Volatile! Never! I accept your wager. 
 We will step near enough to overhear a bit of 
 her conversation with the next person who 
 speaks to her ; and if it does not prove that she 
 possesses a very superior mind, I am no judge 
 of character." 
 
 Winnie was passing, on her way to drag Tib 
 from her seclusion, and overheard this last re- 
 mark. " Who is it that this very judicial 
 young man is going to measure in this authori- 
 tative fashion ?" she wondered. "How very
 
 6 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 unjust of him ! I do hope the poor victim will 
 pass her examination. " 
 
 " Have the palace walls been talking to you, 
 all alone in this corner <" she asked of Tib. 
 " If not, I fear you have been boring yourself 
 to death." 
 
 " On the contrary," Tib replied, "I have 
 been much amused while listening to the ele- 
 vated conversation of three different groups 
 two artists, three scandal- loving old dames, 
 and some girls who were comparing gowns 
 and cooking recipes. They have scattered 
 now, but for a time their chat blended in a 
 .most pleasing symphony something like this : 
 ' Now, dear, don't you think that five chap- 
 erones . . . mixed in one Welsh rabbit, beaten 
 until perfectly smooth and hashed up fine, 
 with just a least soupQon of garlic . . . and 
 bitumen you can't get your perfect tone- effect 
 without bitumen ... I am positive that Rem- 
 brandt, and Titian, and all the great tonalists 
 used ... to take her to the Moulin Rouge 
 . . . really it was positively reckless in her to 
 be seen in public in such disreputable com- 
 pany. She might have managed her little con- 
 solations so much better . . . now, I always
 
 A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 7 
 
 begin with lobster d la Newburgh, and then a 
 cheese souffle, or some sort of pate for an entre, 
 with & filet, and birds with the salad ; and then 
 for dessert some simple thing like ... a group 
 of modern symbolists and impressionists, with 
 all their realistic embodiment of the tragedy of 
 human life, their august melancholy and poetic 
 intensity, their scorn of prettiness, and their 
 worship of mysticism, and . . . the sweetest 
 Paquin gown, copied from one of Pompadour's, 
 with the sleeves 'bouillonnees and paillottees, 
 and the dearest red velvet stole, coming way 
 down the front, all elaborately embroidered 
 and festooned with . . . soft-shell crabs and 
 pistache ice cream, and . . . the worst scandal 
 of the season, culminating in a divorce case 
 that was really shocking. The wretched hus- 
 band committed suicide. They had the best 
 medical experts ; but it was of no use, there 
 was no remedy known to science for that kind 
 of poison. You see, he had made death sure 
 by ... lunching with me. I made the m6- 
 ringue myself. ... It was very sad, a scan- 
 dal of this kind . . . always depends for its 
 success on having it hot. You pop them into 
 the chafing-dish and add plenty of cayenne and
 
 8 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 tobasco, and in two minutes it is done to a 
 turn, provided you don't forget to put in ... 
 MacMonnie's " Bacchante ;" or if you prefer, 
 some of those little Tanagra figurines ; but 
 really the best examples of antique art are to 
 be found ... at the opera. Her costume was 
 a dream, only a bird of paradise in her hair, 
 and the most ravishing orchids, the severe sim- 
 plicity of ... a Puvis de Chavannes, as near 
 an approach to pure spirit as one can attain in 
 this world, even when we consider that . . . 
 the punch was really much too strong, and the 
 champagne flowed like water. ' ; 
 
 While Tib was running on in caricature of 
 the jumbled conversations to which she had 
 listened, Winnie could have screamed with de- 
 light, for she noticed" that the autocratic young 
 man was listening with uncomprehending eyes 
 and a general expression of astonishment and 
 mystification. 
 
 " Delightful !" Winnie whispered ; " but it's 
 not nearly so bad as what I have been enduring 
 at the other end of the room, where an Eng- 
 lishman, who had been shooting big game in 
 India, a college fellow just back from the 
 Olympian Games, and a girl who had had her
 
 A LITTLE MISTAKE IN THE BEGINNING. 9 
 
 first shopping experience in Paris, were all try- 
 ing to outtalk each other like this : ' And 
 when you consider how Asiatic elephants do 
 . . . shrink in the wash, you must have them 
 made as full as ... an eight-oared crew after 
 a university race, and a good training table 
 would only allow the men to eat . . . French 
 clocks and Vienna bronzes, and a set of Sevres 
 porcelain, besides a few little bits of bijouterie, 
 such as ... crocodiles fully twenty feet long, 
 and a royal Bengal tiger, the kind that . . . 
 buttons on the side, and that is what I call a 
 great reduction, almost equal to ... the 
 world's sprinting record . . . but at the Bon 
 Marche they were selling the cunningest little 
 . . . football players ... by the gross for 
 . . . two ostriches and a lioness ; but I don't 
 consider that a remarkable day's sport at all 
 when you compare it with the . . . Prince of 
 Wales' bag, which contained . . . the cheapest 
 golf stockings . . . printed in those bright 
 poster colors, and . . . luffing up with the 
 wind before the cyclone struck them, and . . . 
 dash in, Tib ; I'm giving out ; come to my 
 rescue with some more of your talk. I'll tell 
 you why by and by."
 
 10 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 And Tib, not comprehending why Winnie 
 wished it, but infected with her spirit of mis- 
 chief, elaborated with great effect the absurd 
 mixture, while Winnie kept up a running ac- 
 companiment of athletic slang, hunter's boasts, 
 and shopping experiences. 
 
 " You have won," said the serious young 
 man to the malicious girl. " I never heard 
 such unadulterated, condensed nonsense in all 
 my life. Those girls must be utter idiots. I 
 did not think it possible that the human brain 
 could be reduced to such hash. ' ' 
 
 The malicious girl smiled with serene satis- 
 faction. " There is such a thing," she said to 
 herself, " as being altogether too bright." She 
 understood the situation, and was perfectly 
 satisfied with the result.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 A CHILD'S DEEAM OF VENICE. 
 
 LOVED her from my childhood ; 
 
 she to me 
 Was as a fairy-city of the 
 
 heart, 
 Rising like water-columns from. 
 
 the sea, 
 
 Of joy the sojourn, and oi 
 wealth the mart." 
 
 BYKON. 
 
 TIB had dreamed all 
 her life of Venice. The 
 first books that she re- 
 membered reading of 
 her own choice were a row of small volumes on 
 the top shelf of the family secretary, entitled 
 " British Poets," and these Byron, Rogers, 
 Shelley, Shakespeare all wrote of Venice, and 
 all made a deep impression on her imagination. 
 She lived on a lonely Long Island farm. The 
 yellow, sandy dunes on the landward side were
 
 12 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 dreary and monotonous, but the little land- 
 locked cove, where she was allowed to paddle 
 about in an old tub of a boat, offered unlimited 
 resources to the play of her fancy. To thought- 
 less onlookers it was only little Tib Smith, of 
 Scup Haven, in her pink sunbonnet, rowing in 
 and out among the sea weed- covered piles of a 
 deserted and dilapidated wharf. They did not 
 know that she had invented an amusement for 
 herself of which she never tired ; that the grain 
 elevator just visible in the distance, where the 
 white houses ran down to the new steamboat 
 landing, was for her the Venetian Campanile ; 
 the lighthouse on the rocks, with its low dome, 
 San Marco, and this row of a dozen decaying 
 old posts, between which she loved to paddle, 
 were the marble colonnades of the palaces on the 
 Grand Canal. At the landward end of the 
 wharf a few planks remained, roofing the piles 
 and making a shelter under which the boat 
 could be drawn up at night. In this cave Tib 
 liked to sit, absorbed in her book, or watching 
 the antics of the fiddler crabs on the sand at 
 her feet, or the play of light on the vista of 
 rich, dark posts stretching out before her, fram- 
 ing in their openings glimpses of blue sky and
 
 A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 13 
 
 bluer sea, crossed by an occasional white sail. 
 But always, as she read or idly gazed, she 
 " made believe" that the little cave in which 
 she sat was a palace hall, and that she was 
 looking out across the Venetian lagoons. 
 Sometimes she acted monologues, in which she 
 took the part of all the characters. The trag- 
 edy of the Foscari was her favorite ; and she 
 wept often over the old doge who was obliged 
 to pass sentence of banishment on his own son, 
 so unjustly found guilty of treason from ad- 
 missions wrung from him in torture, and from 
 the evidence of his enemy Loredano. 
 
 Sometimes she arranged the wedding proces- 
 sion of young Foscari with the daughter of the 
 noble Contarini as it took place before his 
 trouble fell on him ; and chips laden with bell- 
 shaped flowers represented gondolas bearing 
 ladies, and were sent bobbing out on the retreat- 
 ing tide to dire disaster. 
 
 There was an old lobster crate which stood 
 for the gloomy dungeons, approached by a 
 Bridge of Sighs built of sand. In this she im- 
 mured, by the order of an imaginary Council 
 of Ten, countless fiddler crabs, each one sup- 
 posed to be the unfortunate Jacopo Foscari.
 
 14 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 But she always connived at their escape, anu. 
 clapped her hands when a particularly lively 
 prisoner scuttled out of his dungeon or, when 
 sent to exile in a galley constructed from an 
 old sardine box, the intrepid crab leaped over- 
 board and, regardless of consequences, swam 
 back to Venice. 
 
 One day a very remarkable thing happened. 
 There was company at Captain Israel Snyder's 
 house. Captain Israel was their nearest neigh- 
 bor. He was owner as well as captain of his 
 ship, and was seldom at home, for his wife had 
 died long ago, and his daughter had accom- 
 panied her father on his voyages, and had been 
 educated and married somewhere in " foreign 
 parts." But Captain Snyder's old maid sisters 
 lived in the comfortable house, and it was one 
 of Tib's delights to call upon them and be shown 
 the curiosities which the captain had brought 
 back to them from his voyages. There were 
 shells, and coral, and carved sandal wood boxes, 
 and queer pictures on rice paper, and jars of 
 preserved ginger, and boxes of Smyrna paste. 
 
 Lately the captain had resigned his position, 
 and had, as he said, " lain by for repairs ;" but 
 he was an old man, and people shook their
 
 A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 15 
 
 heads when they quoted this statement. It 
 was, therefore, a matter of interest not only to 
 Tib but to the entire community when a quan- 
 tity of luggage was deposited on the captain's 
 veranda, and the news ran through the town 
 that Captain Snyder's daughter had come to 
 visit him. So much Tib had heard ; but one 
 day, as she was playing with her Foscari crabs, 
 a handsome boy, about her own age, peeped 
 down at her from the openings between the rot- 
 ting planks of the old wharf. He wore a jersey 
 striped broadly in dark blue and white, and 
 topping his curly black locks was a crimson, ' 
 purse-shaped cap. 
 
 " What are you playing there, little girl, all 
 by yourself ' he asked in correct English, but 
 with an odd accent. 
 
 " I am playing Venice," Tib replied shyly. 
 
 " May I come down and play too ? I used 
 to live in Venice, and I'm awfully lonesome." 
 
 Tib welcomed her unexpected guest, and he 
 at once threw himself into the spirit of her 
 play, tracing a plan of the city in the sand with 
 her wooden shovel, and letting the water into 
 the canals, together they built palaces of oys- 
 ter shells and bits of broken crockery, and an
 
 16 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 old straw hat was mounted on four shingles to 
 represent the dome of the Salute. 
 
 While the boy knew more of the topography 
 of Venice, Tib was much better informed as to 
 its history ; and day after day they found each 
 other's society vastly entertaining. " My name 
 is Lolo," he had said ; " that is the name they 
 call me ; bat my true name is Angelo Zanelli. 
 What is yours ?" 
 
 " My real name is Nellie Smith, but my nick- 
 name is Tib. Father calls me Tibbety Tibbets. ' ' 
 
 "I don't like any of your names," Angelo 
 replied frankly, " except Nellie. That is 
 pretty, but it does not go well with your last 
 name. Smith is hideous. It sounds like the 
 locomotive letting off steam S-s-s-mith. Don' t 
 you think it would be a great deal nicer if you 
 had my name Nellie Zanelli ? If you were 
 my sister that is what your name would be. 
 Don't you like it?" 
 
 Tib confessed that she did think Nellie 
 Zanelli more musical than Tib Smith. 
 
 " Then," said Angelo, " I am going to ask 
 my mother if there is any way I can give you 
 my name." 
 
 The next time they met Angelo was jubilant
 
 A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 17 
 
 "I asked grandpa," Angelo said, "and at 
 first he laughed, and then he said it could be 
 managed very easily after we grow up, provid- 
 ed we both wish it then. And I will not have 
 to take your mime either. I thought I might 
 have to be Tibbety Tibbets Smith and I 
 would have borne it for you, Xellie but grand- 
 pa says that is not necessary. So now you 
 must never, never forget that you are to be Nel- 
 lie Zanelli. And you must not let any other 
 boy give you his name, no matter how much 
 prettier it may be." 
 
 This Tib readily promised, and every day 
 that summer the playmates traced their mimic 
 Venice in the sands, and Lolo gave her fasci- 
 nating descriptions of the city itself. It seemed 
 that he lived in a palace with a beautiful log- 
 gia with white marble tracery carved like lace. 
 Lolo drew the pattern in the wet sand with the 
 help of an old tin can, which he used as a sort 
 of cake- cutter, stamping out the intersecting 
 circles. He described the ball-room, too, with 
 its ceiling frescoed with frolicsome nymphs and 
 its many other lordly and sumptuous features ; 
 but his chief delight in this old palace was a 
 suite of three small rooms which he had dis-
 
 18 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 < 
 
 covered, and of whose existence he was sure no 
 one else knew. 
 
 " There is a portrait in the ball-room," Lolo 
 said, " a portrait of one of my ancestors hold- 
 ing a rapier half drawn from its sheath. I 
 used to be very tired of seeing him eternally 
 daring me to combat ; and once, when my 
 mother was away on a visit and I was in the 
 room all alone, I said, ' Well, fight then, if 
 you want to ; ' and I rushed at him with a stick 
 which I had in my hand. But I stumbled and 
 fell against the frame, and in doing so I moved 
 a latch for the picture was really a door and 
 it swung open just a little, and I easily pushed 
 it wider, and there was a little narrow staircase 
 leading down. So down I went, and found 
 three funny little rooms with very little f urni- 
 ture. In the first room only an old bedstead 
 stripped of its coverings, and a little cabinet 
 with drawers and pigeon-holes stuffed with yel- 
 low, old letters and papers. The next room 
 was very queer. It was like a kitchen, only 
 not quite like one. It had a little furnace of 
 brick-work, with a chimney, and strangely 
 shaped kettles and pipkins, and a sink all black- 
 ened with slops that had been poured into it
 
 A. CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 19 
 
 and stained the marble ; and there was a shelf 
 of vials of queer shapes, some with medicines 
 in them and some empty. It was a fine place 
 to play drug- store in, and I had rare sport 
 afterward making up pills and pounding in a 
 little mortar ; but I had sense enough not to 
 take my medicines, or else I might have been 
 poisoned." 
 
 "What a queer place!" Tib commented; 
 " perhaps it had been a doctor's office." 
 
 " That is what I thought," Angelo replied ; 
 " and the third room, which had nothing in it 
 at all but some rows of empty book shelves, 
 may have been the anteroom where his patients 
 waited, for a little staircase led from this room 
 down to a door which had once opened on a 
 side street, but which was now walled up with 
 stone. I asked my old nurse, Bianca, the next 
 day, whether any one of my ancestors had been 
 a doctor, and she said yes, there was one, but I 
 must never ask my father about him, for he 
 was a very bad man, and had perished miser- 
 .ibly for his crimes, to the disgrace of our fam- 
 ily. She would not tell me any more just 
 then ; but another day we happened to be walk- 
 ing down the calle (I mean the little side street),
 
 20 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 and I pointed out the door that had been 
 walled up, and asked her what it meant. She 
 crossed herself, and showed me a cross traced 
 in the mortar, and said it had been closed by 
 the order of the Holy Inquisition, which had 
 burned my ancestor with the books taken from 
 his own library because he was a wizard and a 
 murderer, a maker of poisons and a killer of his 
 patients by horrible means which he had learned 
 in Eastern countries. This was so very dread- 
 ful that I determined not to speak to my father 
 about it, for I knew that it would pain him. 
 ' Does my mother know this ? ' I asked ; and I 
 was glad when Bianca said that she did not. I 
 asked her why this side door had been walled 
 up instead of the front door of our palace, and 
 Bianca said that it had opened into the wiz- 
 ard's laboratory and library, which were for- 
 merly somewhere in the cellars under the 
 house, but that they must have been filled up 
 with earth, as, though they had been searched 
 for, no such rooms could be found or any door 
 or passageway on the inside of the house cor- 
 responding to the bricked doorway on the 
 calle. Then I knew that I was the only one 
 who knew the secret of the little rooms, and
 
 A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 21 
 
 that really they were not in the cellars, but be- 
 tween the main floor, where the grand apart- 
 ments are, and the lower story, where the jani- 
 tor lives. Bianca told me that the ghost of my 
 wicked ancestor, a bent old man in a long black 
 cloak, had been seen passing in and out of that 
 walled-up door, walking right through the solid 
 stone. ' But she made me promise never to tell a 
 word of this to my mother or my father ; and, 
 indeed, I would not pain my dear mamma for 
 worlds by telling her about this bad man. I 
 used to hope that his ghost would come in 
 some day while I was there. 1 would have 
 asked whether it was really true that he had 
 killed anybody on purpose for, you know, he 
 might have done it by mistake. I could not 
 go down to the little rooms as often as I would 
 have liked, for I did not want to be found out ; 
 but when mother had gone out for a trip to the 
 Lido, and Bianca thought I had gone with her, 
 I would have my chance of an hour or so among 
 the bottles." 
 
 Angelo's story of the little rooms interested 
 Tib greatly. " You must show them to me if I 
 ever go to Venice," she said. 
 
 " If you go ! Of course you will go," An-
 
 22 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 gelo replied. " When you are Nellie Zanelli, 
 you must come and live in Venice." 
 
 So all summer the children played together 
 on the beach ; but when autumn came, Captain 
 Israel's daughter and grandson went back to 
 Venice, and that winter Captain Israel Snyder 
 sailed away on his long voyage to the undis- 
 covered country, and Tib knew that Lolo would 
 never come to Scup Haven again. Before he 
 had gone he had given her a farewell present, a 
 little silver box which he had found in the old 
 cabinet in the little room. It was shaped like 
 a snuff-box, but was smaller, and there was an- 
 other exactly like it. They screwed together 
 at the back and formed one box with two com- 
 partments. Each had the word Zanelli en- 
 graved upon the lid, and each contained small, 
 glass-like globules, which might have been 
 taken for beads but that they were not per- 
 forated. Lolo kept the box with the green 
 balls, and gave Tib that containing amber ones. 
 
 " Don't eat them, they may be poison," the 
 boy had said; "but if you ever forget what 
 your name is going to be you can look at the 
 lid of this box. See, I have scratched jff the 
 Za on my box, so it reads Nelli, and that means
 
 A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 23 
 
 you. I shall wait for you, Nellie, and I shall 
 not give my name to any one else, for there is 
 no one in. the world I love so much." 
 
 And so her playmate faded out of her life ; 
 and though she never quite forgot him, Tib 
 gradually gave up all expectation of ever seeing 
 Lolo again. But she never relinquished the 
 hope that some day she would see Venice. 
 When spring came and she could return to her 
 play on the beach she acted her little dramas 
 again all by herself, as she had done before the 
 coming of Lolo. One day her father followed 
 her, and heard her repeating a monologue to 
 herself : 
 
 " There is a glorious city in the sea ; 
 The sea is in the broad and narrow streets, 
 Ebbing and flowing, and the salt seaweed 
 Clings to the marble of her palaces." 
 
 "Where are your palaces, little girl?" he 
 called in his hearty way. " Acting a play all 
 by your little lonesome ? Guess you are too 
 much by yourself, and we will have to send 
 you to school." 
 
 But school only gave new food to her imagi- 
 nation. She studied every photograph and 
 etching that came in her way, and listened later
 
 24 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 to lectures by Professor Waite on Venetian his- 
 tory and Venetian art, and in the city exhibi- 
 tions and at the picture-dealers' learned to 
 know something of the marvellous Venetian 
 coloring. It was always her hope, her ambi- 
 tion to some day see the wonderful city of her 
 dreams, though the mirage faded farther and 
 farther away as she grew older. She was an 
 art student now, and had been in Europe, 
 though it had never been possible for her to 
 visit Italy ; but at last this longed-for privi- 
 lege had come to her, the dream of her life had 
 come true, and Tib was in Venice. She had 
 stepped into a strange hallucination when she 
 took her seat in the gondola, when Winnie met 
 her at her arrival at the railway station, and 
 had drifted quite out of the reality of travel. 
 She had lived an unreal, romantic life as a 
 child a life created by her own imagination. 
 Now the romance was real, but it all seemed 
 the glamour of a dream. 
 
 "It is impossible !" she kept repeating be- 
 neath her breath. " I shall wake up in a few 
 moments. These palaces flitting by, these 
 glimpses, up narrow canals, of bridges and bal- 
 conies, and roses clambering over garden walls,
 
 A CHILD'S DREAM OF VENICE. 25 
 
 will all dissolve ; but let me enjoy the illusion 
 while it lasts." It was all so familiar and so 
 satisfying ! As the gondola, after many hair- 
 breadth evasions of collision in the narrow, tor- 
 tuous waterways, glided out upon the Grand 
 Canal, she recognized the Eialto Bridge and 
 many of the palaces. "That I should really 
 see them," she murmured "the palaces of 
 Venice, with the quatrefoils over the arches in 
 the loggias, just as Lolo used to cut them in the 
 sand with the tomato- can !' ' 
 
 "Are you out of your mind?" Winnie 
 asked. 
 
 " I do not wonder you think so," Tib re- 
 plied ; " but it is all so strangely familiar." 
 
 " Perhaps you lived here once in some pre- 
 vious state of existence," Winnie said jest- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Yes, long ago, when I was a child," Tib 
 replied, " I used to build mimic palaces, and 
 fancy that I would live in a real one some day." 
 
 The gondola stopped gently in front of a 
 flight of marble steps, and Tib, still dazed, 
 gazed at the beautiful old building. 
 
 " Why, this is a palace," she said to Winnie. 
 " What business have we here 2"
 
 26 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 "Yes," Winnie replied, "a palace let in 
 floors, like an apartment house, and we have 
 the best floor. We have all that lovely loggia, 
 as they call the balcony, except the end, which 
 is railed off in front of the door at the corner. 
 Some one else has the right to nse that part, 
 and the door opens into a passage leading to 
 the main hallway. But whoever this other 
 tenant may be, I have not seen him yet, and 
 we really have the entire beautiful balcony 
 quite to ourselves." 
 
 The haunting feeling of familiarity explained 
 itself to Tib when she entered the ball-room 
 studio. It was such a house as this that had 
 been Lolo's home, for there were the frescoed 
 nymphs, "attributed to Giorgione," on the 
 ceiling, and a row of ancestors' portraits on the 
 wall. But of course there were a hundred such 
 houses in Venice, and Lolo was probably now 
 a very ordinary man.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 FIRST DAYS IN VENICE, AND ANOTHER LITTLE 
 MISTAKE. 
 
 every traveller who 
 has read much, even 
 if he has had no 
 such experience as 
 Tib's, Venice at first 
 view brings a cer- 
 tain strange, haunt- 
 ing sensation of 
 familiarity. It is so 
 satisfying, too, ful- 
 filling and more 
 than realizing all 
 our preconceived ideas ; a constantly increas- 
 ing delight which does not diminish or pall on 
 closer acquaintance ; one of the few things that 
 no one can overpraise at least for the artist or 
 for a mind sensitive to artistic and poetic influ- 
 ences.
 
 28 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 The palace in which they had taken the state 
 apartment kept its old traditions very well. 
 There were no anachronisms of modern con- 
 veniences of any kind. Though there were 
 other lodgers in the house, they rarely met them 
 on the staircase, and never elsewhere. The 
 girls' bedroom was paved with scagliola, a mo- 
 saic exactly like that on the floors of the Ducal 
 Palace, which struck the foot with a chill shock 
 at rising, and reminded Winnie perversely of 
 slices of bologna sausage. Their windows, too, 
 looked across all the shimmer and changing life 
 of the canal to the dome of the Salute, a pros- 
 pect of which they never wearied. There was 
 a better view of the church from the balcony ; 
 and here Tib loved to sit with her travelling 
 sketch-box in her lap, while she brushed in 
 view after view of the church, getting a differ- 
 ent effect with the varying lightings of sunset, 
 or dawn, or midday ; of white mist, or stormy 
 cloud, or clear, azure sky. There were few 
 American guests at the hotels at this season. 
 It was growing too warm, and the tourists had 
 flitted to the Italian lakes and the Tyrol ; but 
 Italians from the south of Italy, for whom Ven- 
 ice is a summer watering-place, had taken their
 
 FIRST DATS IN VENICE. 29 
 
 place, and the city was as full of sightseers and 
 idlers as ever, while the regular inhabitants had 
 adopted an out-of-door life and kept up a cheer- 
 ful chatter in their musical tongue. There was 
 much coming and going from the lagoon, where 
 the sea breezes were fresh and cool. There was 
 always a group of gondolas at the palace steps, 
 tempting the ever-active Italians to wander ; but 
 Tib was so contented right there in this hang- 
 bird's nest that it was long before she yielded to 
 Winnie's suggestions of other delights to be ex- 
 plored. She had the balcony quite to herself. 
 Others looked in for a moment and passed out 
 again, but no one seemed to care as she did 
 to ensconce herself there from breakfast until 
 luncheon. There were signs that a gentleman 
 found the end which had been reserved for 
 other lodgers a favorite haunt in the very early 
 morning, for there were always fresh cigar 
 ashes on the table, an empty coffee-cup, and a 
 volume of Ruskin, all of which a servant car- 
 ried away later in the day. Tib had not noticed 
 these indications, but nothing escaped Win- 
 nie's keen observation. 
 
 "It is rather odd that we never meet our 
 friend the elderly English architect," she re'
 
 30 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE: 
 
 marked. " He comes here so regularly for his 
 morning coffee, his chapter of Ruskin, and his 
 little smoke, that it would be natural for us to 
 find him here some day. I wonder whether he 
 has ascertained the hour that we usually take 
 possession, and leaves designedly before we ar- 
 rive. If so, he is either very shy or else consid- 
 erate of us, and afraid of frightening us away. 
 In either case, I like him for it. " 
 
 " Yes," Tib replied absently, " it is very good 
 of him. Who did you say he is ?" 
 
 " I said the elderly English architect who in 
 the morning monopolizes the end of the balcony 
 which does not belong to us. There are always 
 Italians there in the evening listening to the 
 serenades and watching the effect of the moon- 
 light and the reflections of the lanterns in the 
 water ; but our friend is the only one who is 
 sufficiently ( matinal' to have discovered its 
 charms at dawn. Young people do not like to 
 get up early ; therefore I argue that man has 
 either passed the age of spending the night 
 with the boys, or else he is a very serious 
 young man. No, he cannot be young at all ; 
 no young man could resist these lovely Vene- 
 tian nights. Sherlock Holmes has made it per-
 
 FIRST DAYS IN VENICE. 31 
 
 fectly easy. We have only to open our 
 eyes and' judge from unmistakable indica- 
 tions." 
 
 " But why do you conclude that he is an 
 Englishman and an architect ?" 
 
 " Because his Ruskin is a London edition 
 that gives a clew as to the nationality ; then he 
 is moved to indignation at what Buskin says 
 against Renaissance architecture, and no one 
 but an architect would have cared. He has 
 probably studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts 
 in Paris, for the Ecole is given over to the 
 Renaissance. It is fun to see how he has 
 marked all these passages and thrown in ex- 
 clamation points and interrogation points, and 
 such remarks as ' Absurd ! ' and ' Untrue,' and 
 ' I wish some one would answer this, ' in the 
 margin." 
 
 " Do you think it quite fair to read written 
 notes without permission ?" Tib asked. 
 
 " I did not know, when I began to read, that 
 there were any notes," Winnie replied. "I 
 am sure Ruskin is public property. I opened 
 the book to his quotation of Sir Walter Scott's 
 description of scenery in the Trossachs, where 
 he says :
 
 32 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " ' Each purple peak, each flinty spire, 
 Was bathed in floods of living fire.' 
 
 Ruskin quotes it to prove that the Gothic im- 
 agery, in the use of the word spire, is what 
 gives beauty to the passage ; and he argues 
 that the corresponding term taken from classi- 
 cal architecture would not have been so poetic. 
 ' Suppose,' he says, ' Sir Walter had written : 
 "Each purple peak, each flinty pediment." 
 Why would the poem be spoiled ? Simply be- 
 cause those pediments and architraves never 
 excited a single pleasurable feeling in you, and 
 never will to the end of time.' This is w r hat 
 excites the ire of our old friend the architect. 
 Evidently classical terms sound melodiously to 
 his aged ear, and to him the image of a Greek 
 temple is as beautiful as that of a Gothic cathe- 
 dral. I can see him shaking his gray head 
 vigorously. Some way I see signs of vigor as 
 well as age ; and I believe he has a perfect 
 inane of iron-gray hair, and I sympathize with 
 him, Tib. I like the Gothic palaces here in 
 Venice ; but, indeed, I think the classical ones 
 have a great deal of dignity too. Now, look at 
 the Salute over there. It is almost mountain- 
 ous in outline. When the moonlight rested on
 
 FIRST DATS IN VENICE. 33 
 
 it last night it reminded me of the snowy dome 
 of Mont Blanc. Of course not so immense, 
 but majestic and pure ; and when the sunset 
 flushed it all rosy pink as we were drifting 
 by the other evening, the facade rose above us 
 like some sheer precipice the cliffs of Dover, 
 perhaps. Oh, I am sure that Renaissance 
 architecture furnishes just the imagery with 
 which to describe mountains in poetic lan- 
 guage, ancl I believe Sir Walter could have 
 done it." 
 
 " Of course he could," Tib replied. " I am 
 not Scott, but I believe I could do it, " and she 
 began to scribble on an old envelope. " Let me 
 see 
 
 Its soaring columns carved in mist 
 With tender flush of sunrise kissed. 
 
 No, it will be better to have it a moonlight 
 effect. Ah ! now I have it," and her fingers 
 flew faster. 
 
 " Hurry, Tib, or, better, leave it for another 
 time," said Winnie. " Here is Tribolo with his 
 gondola, come to take us for our afternoon 
 trip." 
 
 Tib dropped her poem and hastily packed up 
 her sketch-box and followed Winnie.
 
 34 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " Well, what did you make out of the im- 
 possible stylobates and architraves f ' Winnie 
 asked an hour later. 
 
 " I don't quite remember. I must have 
 dropped the paper in the canal," Tib replied. 
 "It is of no consequence ; I did not succeed 
 very well." 
 
 But the " elderly English architect" (who, by 
 the way, was neither elderly, nor an English- 
 man, nor an architect, but the young man who 
 had listened to then; nonsense that memorable 
 Thursday), this mistaken and mistaking indi- 
 vidual thought differently when, in the quiet 
 of his own room, his servant handed him his 
 volume of Ruskin, and he found the scribbled 
 envelope between its leaves. 
 
 " What sentimental young person has been 
 writing me poetry ?' ' was his first remark. 
 " Really, a very romantic proceeding to tuck it 
 inside my favorite book, but forward, my dear, 
 decidedly forward. Your governess should 
 look after you better." And then he read the 
 poem and elevated his eyebrows. "Not writ- 
 ten to me exactly, after all, but in answer to 
 my request that some one would show Ruskin 
 that the Renaissance is as poetic as the GothK
 
 FIRST DATS IN VENICE. 35 
 
 Rather cleverly managed, too, but self-conscious. 
 She must have felt that it was good, or she 
 would not have offered it for my admiration. 
 Yes, here is her name on the other side of the 
 envelope Miss Winifred De Witt, in a very 
 manly hand, not hers. A pretty name Amer- 
 ican probably, and I have pleasant memories of 
 America, and have met many intelligent Amer- 
 ican girls, and some with lovely faces ; but, un- 
 happily, graces of mind and feature are not 
 always found together. Now, if that girl with 
 the Madonna face that 1 saw at the Waites' 
 studio Thursday afternoon had been capable of 
 writing something like this ! But, instead, 
 what a stream of idiotic maundering poured 
 from those perfect lips ! The woman who wrote 
 this is probably a fright to look upon, and yet 
 she must have had some appreciation of beauty 
 both in art and nature. " 
 
 Once more he read Tib's lines with pleas- 
 ure : 
 
 " Like some Greek temple pure and grave 
 With pediment and architrave, 
 And sculptured columns soaring high 
 Against the solemn, starlit sky, 
 The mountain with its dome of snow 
 Lifted its perfect portico."
 
 36 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " The law of compensation is a cruel one," 
 he thought. u Here is a mind with which I 
 am in sympathy. She loves Renaissance archi- 
 tecture, and all her metaphors are correct. 
 That argues cultured taste, education, travel. 
 She expresses that taste in acceptable terms, 
 which argues more education, and, alas ! age, 
 also a certain ability which comes from prac- 
 tice. She is doubtless an elderly penny-a-liner, 
 and I shall recognize this poem some day in the 
 pages of the Ladies' Domestic WeeJdy. This 
 reasoning from circumstantial evidence, which 
 Sherlock Holmes has reduced to an exact sci- 
 ence, has its drawbacks : it effectually destroys 
 all our illusions." 
 
 The young man's face was a pleasant one 
 while those thoughts . chased each other in his 
 idle fancy ; but suddenly a cloud crossed it, 
 and he dashed the poem into a drawer of his 
 desk, and set himself resolutely to some liter- 
 ary work upon which he had been engaged. 
 " What business have I," he asked himself, 
 " to indulge in foolish speculation about any 
 woman I who have such a heritage of disgrace 
 that I can never marry, but who have sufficient 
 consolation in the love of my mother and in
 
 FIRST DATS IN VENICE. 37 
 
 this absorbing work which I have set myself to 
 do, for the sake of Venice Venice whom I 
 have made my only sweetheart, and whom I 
 shall make to be known and loved by others as 
 I love her 2"
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR SKETCHING TRIPS A GHOST. 
 
 'JNN1E had at last 
 succeeded in per- 
 suading Tib that 
 ten different stu- 
 dies of the same 
 view of the Salute 
 were enough to 
 give to that par- 
 ticular building, 
 when all Venice 
 still lay unex- 
 plored, and, with 
 Adelaide as guide, 
 
 they had visited the chief points of interest and 
 had settled down to a daily gondola sketching 
 trip. Their gondolier, Tribolo so called, he told 
 them, on account of his tribulations had such 
 a gentle, appealing look of melancholy that
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR SKETCHING TRIPS. 39 
 
 i 
 
 they had not been able to resist, and they had 
 engaged him for the season, though his prices 
 were higher and his gondola older than those of 
 the other gondoliers. As they were returning 
 from, one of their expeditions soon after this 
 arrangement had been entered upon, Tribolo 
 brought them back by way of a number of tor- 
 tuous and narrow side canals. Just before they 
 flashed into the sunshine of the Grand Canal 
 they passed a gateway or doorway which had 
 formerly opened upon a narrow sidewalk that 
 ran along by the canal, but was now filled in 
 with great blocks of rough stone. It was alto- 
 gether a very picturesque bit, for there was a 
 carved head on the keystone of the arch, and a 
 vine from the neighboring garden had clam- 
 bered over the wall and drooped over the stones, 
 as though Nature, too, were striving to close 
 the doorway. Tribolo rowed slowly, for he 
 fancied that the girls might like to sketch the 
 door some day ; and Tib called to him to stop, 
 and scrutinized it intently. But it was not be- 
 cause of its capabilities in suggesting a water- 
 color. " Where have I seen a picture or read a 
 description of this door ?" she said reflectively ; 
 and then, turning to Tribolo, she asked, " Is
 
 40 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 there any legend connected with the walling up 
 of this door ?" 
 
 " I do not know, signorita," the gondolier 
 replied ; " but I have heard others say that the 
 place is haunted ; that at night phantom gon- 
 dolas arrive, and the ghosts pass right through 
 the wall." 
 
 " Yes," Tib assented eagerly, " I have heard 
 so too; but where?" A dip of the oar, and 
 they turned the corner, and found themselves, 
 to their surprise, in front of their own palazzo. 
 " Why, it is our own house !" Tib exclaimed. 
 
 * ' I think not, ' ' Winnie replied. ' ' Very like- 
 ly it belongs to one of the buildings back of 
 our palace. If it were a part of our house, we 
 would have windows overlooking the garden." 
 
 They did not pass the door for many days 
 after this, for the Grand Canal became for a 
 time their favorite sketching ground. Every 
 morning Tribolo would row them up its sweep- 
 ing, S-shaped curve, stopping at some point of 
 vantage opposite one of the older palaces, where 
 they could sketch its lovely facade. Some- 
 times, when no opening side canal or sheltered 
 corner could be found where she could make 
 her drawing from the gondola, a window could
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR-SKETCHING TRIPS. 41 
 
 be hired for a few hours in some apartment 
 placarded " To Let 1 ' opposite a coveted view, 
 and so her set of palace fronts grew every day 
 more complete. 
 
 While thus engaged, Winnie would read 
 aloud from guide-books and histories the stories 
 of the old buildings which Tib drew, so that 
 they had a fair idea of the dates when they 
 were built, of their different styles of architec- 
 ture, and of the histories of the different fami- 
 lies who had occupied them. 
 
 They found that even so far back as 1495 the 
 Grand Canal had deserved its name. Philippe 
 de Comynes, at that time the French ambassa- 
 dor, thus chronicled his impressions : 
 
 " They led me along the Canal Grant, which 
 is very large. Galleys pass through it, and one 
 sees ships of four hundred tons' burden near 
 the houses. And I believe it to be the most 
 beautiful street in all the world, and the best 
 built, and goes the length of the city. The 
 houses are very large and high, of good stone, 
 and the ancient ones are all painted ; the 
 others, made since a hundred years, have the 
 fronts in white marble which comes from Istria. 
 It is the most triumphant city that I have seen,
 
 42 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 and the most wisely governed, and where the 
 service of God is most solemnly rendered. " 
 
 If Comynes could thus praise the Canal in 
 his time, it has grown even more beautiful 
 since a third style, that of the Renaissance, has 
 sprung up amid the palaces of the Byzantine 
 period and the pure, fanciful Gothic (" the 
 point-lace of architecture' '). 
 
 These three orders, the Byzantine or Arab, 
 the Lombard or Gothic, and the Classical or 
 Renaissance, mingle in the Ducal Palace. It 
 is, as Ruskin calls it, " the central building of 
 the world." On the Grand Canal, however, 
 they are to be traced distinctly in each sepa- 
 rate, perfect palace, each beautiful after its 
 own kind. 
 
 The girls' favorite course, when they wished 
 simply to make a gondola trip for the sake of 
 the enjoyment of the ensemble, was from their 
 own hotel to the Palazzo Vendramin, near the 
 railroad station. It was the path by which 
 they had entered Venice, the trip taken by the 
 most Hurried of tourists, and the one which 
 of all others gives most of beauty and inter- 
 est at every dip of the oar. Hopkinson Smith, 
 with his sensitive artist's eye and the skilled
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR SKETCHING TRIPS. 43 
 
 touch of a word painter, has best described 
 it: 
 
 " Nowhere else in the wide world is there 
 such a sight a double row of creamy white 
 palaces tiled in red and topped with quaint 
 chimneys ; overhanging balconies of marble, 
 fringed with flowers, with gay awnings above 
 and streaming shadows below ;' two lines of 
 narrow quays crowded with people flashing 
 bright bits of color in the blazing sun ; swarms 
 of gondolas, barcos, and lesser water-spiders 
 darting in and out ; lazy red- sailed luggers, 
 melon-loaded, wit>- crinkled green shadows 
 crawling beneath ^dr bows, r ifLile at the far 
 end, over the glistening highway, beaded with 
 people, curves the beautiful bridge an ivory 
 arch against a turquoise sky." 
 
 Our young artists never tired of this beauti- 
 ful panorama, and agreed that the reproduction 
 of its beauties gave opportunity for as many 
 centuries of art work as had been required for 
 their creation. They studied the buildings 
 from a historical point of view, first visiting 
 and sketching the few older and more ruinous 
 palaces, and finding them picturesque and color- 
 ful in their decay. While the later buildings
 
 44 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 could receive ample justice from black and 
 white drawings, and even from photographs, 
 the charm of these ancient palaces could only 
 be painted, for the chief characteristic of the 
 Byzantine architecture, like that of the Orient 
 from which it is derived, is color. The exteriors 
 of these houses had been ornamented with tiles 
 and with columns of colored marbles. 
 
 With Ruskin as a guide, the girls discovered 
 a group of old Byzantine palaces near the 
 Rialto mentioned in his Appendix to the 
 " Stones of Venice." All of these Byzantine 
 palaces were formerly encrusted with mosaics. 
 Their columns were generally purple porphyry 
 or of green serpentine, and in their wealth of. 
 color they presented a contrast to the white 
 marble of the Gothic and the Renaissance 
 period. It was of these Byzantine palaces that 
 Rogers wrote : 
 
 " By many a pile in more than Eastern pride, 
 Of old the residence of merchant kings, 
 The fronts of some, though time had shattered them, 
 Still glowing with the richest hues of art." 
 
 Very sad is the present condition of some of 
 them, not unlike that of the Fondaco dei Turchi 
 when Ruskin saw it. Ruskin 's description of
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR-SKETCHING TRIPS. 45 
 
 this famous building, which in the tenth cen- 
 tury was the warehouse and exchange of Turk- 
 ish merchants, seemed to the girls the most elo- 
 quent word picture they had ever seen of the 
 degradation of ruined grandeur : 
 
 "It is a ghastly ruin, whatever is venerable 
 and sad in its wreck being disguised by at- 
 tempts to put it to present uses of the basest 
 kind. The covering stones have been torn 
 away like the shroud from a corpse, and its 
 walls, rent into a thousand chasms, are filled 
 and refilled with fresh brick-work, and the 
 seams and hollows choked with clay, and 
 whitewash oozing and trickling over the mar- 
 ble. Soft grasses and wandering leafage have 
 rooted themselves in the rents, but they are not 
 suffered to grow in their own wild and gentle 
 way, for the place is in some sort inhabited : 
 rotten partitions are nailed across its corridors, 
 and here and there the weeds are indolently 
 torn down, leaving their haggard fibres to strug- 
 gle again into unwholesome- growth when the 
 spring next stirs them." 
 
 It was while Tib was making a water-color 
 study of the interior court of just such a dilapi- 
 dated Byzantine palace that she was aware of
 
 46 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 the presence of a restless young man, who dart- 
 ed in and out of the doorway, ran up and down 
 the staircases, and thrust his head now over 
 one balcony and now through an arch, evident- 
 ly seeking a good point of view from which to 
 photograph the very bit which she was sketch- 
 ing. He carried his easel from spot to spot, 
 but at length attempted to set it up behind Tib 
 and to take the view from over her head. See- 
 ing that her camp stool had been placed too 
 near the wall to give him sufficient room, Tib 
 obligingly moved aside, or attempted to do so ; 
 but the young man, in an agony of polite re- 
 monstrance, held her easel in place, assuring 
 her that it did not discommode him in the least. 
 
 In his nervousness he first took a photograph 
 of the easel, and when Tib assured him that 
 this must be the case, he tried again. 
 
 "I am sure that is perfect," he said grate- 
 fully ; " two heads are better than one," and 
 then he recognized the Madonna face. In his 
 agitation he overturned her sketch-box, and 
 with a wild dash for .the scattered tubes, 
 bumped his head against hers. 
 
 " Oh ! are they ?" Tib replied merrily ; and 
 then checked her laughter as she saw that the
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR SKETCHING TRIPS. 47 
 
 shock had opened the shutter of his camera 
 and ruined the negative just taken. 
 
 A dogged look of determination had settled 
 upon the young man's countenance. He would 
 not be embarrassed by this foolish girl simply 
 because she had a beautiful face, and he pro- 
 ceeded to deliberately take two carefully timed 
 photographs, and only discovered, when he de- 
 veloped them, that they were both on the same 
 plate, and his only success of the morning was 
 a capital negative of Tib's easel. 
 
 "Decidedly," he said to himself, " I prefer 
 the literary genius who keeps out of sight to 
 this pretty girl, who is always appropriating to 
 herself the most desirable situations and get- 
 ting in the way with miserable sloppy water- 
 colors, and otherwise discomposing serious 
 workers." 
 
 By which observation it will be seen that 
 their paths had crossed before, and with dis- 
 comfiture to the young amateur photographer. 
 Winnie had been conscious of this ; for several 
 days past she had noticed the photographic 
 outfit in the different Byzantine palaces where 
 they had gone to sketch. The owner had evi- 
 dently either been photographing there or had
 
 48 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 sent his apparatus on in advance. Why was it 
 that until now the photographer himself had 
 not appeared upon the scene 3 On thinking it 
 over, she had noticed an opening of doors, a 
 mysterious bobbing in and out of a head, foot- 
 steps coming and going. Such avoidance must 
 be intentional ; he had found the ground occu- 
 pied and had retired, until grown desperate of 
 ever being able to achieve his own wishes, he 
 had endeavored boldly but unsuccessfully to 
 photograph the view which Tib was paint- 
 ing. 
 
 " Where have we ever seen this young man ?" 
 she asked of Tib. " His face is familiar, and 
 yet I cannot remember where we have met 
 him." 
 
 " I remember," Tib replied ; " while we were 
 amusing ourselves with trying to reproduce the 
 chatter of an afternoon tea at the first of Ade- 
 laide's receptions which we attended, he was 
 standing by the piano looking over the music." 
 
 " Of course ; with that malicious-looking 
 girl." 
 
 " I did not notice the girl, but I remember 
 thinking at the time that he would have been 
 handsome if he had not looked so angry. It
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR SKETCHING TRIPS. 49 
 
 was a strange look to have on one's face at a 
 tea." 
 
 " He was angry at our talk, Tib." 
 
 " I would be very much mortified if I thought 
 that he had heard it." 
 
 " But he did, and misunderstood it delicious- 
 ly. He thinks us a couple of rattle-tongued 
 idiots ; and it serves him right for being so 
 slow of comprehension. 1 never enjoyed any- 
 thing more in my life." 
 
 " Winnie, is it possible that you ran on and 
 let me disgrace myself in that way, knowing 
 that this young man heard what we were say- 
 ing I" 
 
 "Certainly; but he brought it on himself. 
 I heard him tell the malicious girl that he in- 
 tended to form an estimate of your mind by 
 your next remark. I hope he found it .compre- 
 hensive enough. Now, don't spoil the joke by 
 explaining everything the next time you see 
 him." 
 
 A deep red spot burned on Tib's cheek. 
 " Explain ! I never desire to see him again." 
 
 " I do," said Winnie to herself ; " and if I do 
 I will give him more food for reflection. He is, 
 better than a circus."
 
 50 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 They stopped at Professor Waite's studio on 
 their return that day, and he criticised their 
 work. 
 
 " Why have you confined yourselves to the 
 Byzantine palaces ?" he asked. " There is some 
 such lovely tracery in the Gothic arcades." 
 
 " We are coming to them," Tib replied, " but 
 we want to take them chronologically. We 
 are very much interested in Venetian history, 
 and we are reading now about the Fourth Cru- 
 sade. " 
 
 " That is odd, very odd," replied the profes- 
 sor. " I have a friend who is writing a book 
 on the palaces of Venice ; he is treating them 
 chronologically, too, and has promised to read 
 his chapter on the Byzantine period to our 
 friends next Thursday afternoon." 
 
 " We will surely be here," said Tib. " It 
 will be a privilege to have some one direct our 
 studies." 
 
 " Yes, he is an interesting man ; and I want 
 you to leave this water-color with me, for he 
 was asking me the other day if I could recom- 
 mend 6ome artist who would assist him in 
 illustrating the work. And bring pen-and-ink 
 drawings of some of the Gothic tracery ; they
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR SKETCHING TRIPS. 51 
 
 will be just what he will want for the next 
 chapters. You may have seen my friend, for 
 he lives in this house and occasionally sits on 
 the balcony." 
 
 "Is he particularly fond of Renaissance 
 architecture ?' ' Winnie asked. 
 
 " Of all good styles ; and now I think of it, 
 he did say that he had been made especially 
 indignant by Ruskin's injustice to the Renais- 
 sance. He said, too, that he was so fond of 
 the sunrise over the Salute that he never missed 
 seeing it. " 
 
 " I was sure of it. It is our friend,' ' Winnie 
 exclaimed enthusiastically. 
 
 " Then you have already met him ?' ' 
 
 " Not exactly ; but we know him all the 
 same a venerable man with gray hair and 
 beard, with some such name as Hobbes or Dob- 
 son. I see by your smile that I am right. " 
 
 Tib was not so sure, for the professor's smile 
 was quizzical as he said : " Be sure to be on 
 hand early next Thursday, and you shall see 
 for yourself how nearly you have guessed." 
 
 A few evenings later a very odd thing hap- 
 pened. The girls were returning with Profes- 
 sor Waite from safesta at San Marco ; the piazza
 
 52 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 
 
 had been illuminated, and it was a wonderful 
 sight to see every outline of the architecture 
 traced in little jets of flame. It was a moon- 
 light night, and as they slipped homeward 
 through the side canals, objects on the lighted 
 side were vividly distinct while the shadows 
 opposite were inky black. Tib was watching 
 the Rembrandtesque effects with keen delight 
 when she was awakened from her reverie by 
 the professor giving an order to Tribolo. 
 
 " You know the little calle by the side of 
 our palazzo ?" 
 
 " Yes, signor, the Calle del Espirito. No 
 one takes it at night, for it is haunted." 
 
 " Nonsense ; it is the nearest way home ; 
 and see, there is a gondola ahead of us turning 
 into it. You need have no fear, for we have 
 company." 
 
 The/etea or cloth top of the leading gondola 
 had been removed, for the night was warm, 
 and they could see that it had a single occu- 
 pant, a man in a black cloak. The gondola 
 kept steadily in front of them until it came in 
 front of the walled-up door, when it paused in 
 the shadow. Tribolo slackened his speed and 
 all watched. Suddenly the gondola shot out
 
 THE CLOSED DOOR-SKETCHING TRIPS. 53 
 
 into the brilliantly lighted Grand Canal, and 
 they saw that the man had vanished. 
 
 " He went in at that door !' ' Tib exclaimed. 
 
 "Impossible," Winnie replied. "We saw 
 when we last passed here that it was walled 
 up." 
 
 Tribolo was trembling so that he could scarce- 
 ly guide the gondola. " Si, signorita," he said. 
 " I told you, it is the spirit."
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 
 
 this temple-porch, 
 Old as he was, so near his hun- 
 dredth year, 
 And blind his eyes put out 
 
 did Dandolo 
 Stand forth, displaying on his 
 
 crown the cross. 
 There did he stand erect, invin- 
 cible, 
 Though wan his cheeks and wet 
 
 with many tears, 
 For in his prayers he had been 
 
 weeping much ; 
 And now the pilgrims and the 
 
 people wept 
 With admiration, saying in their 
 
 hearts, 
 
 ' Surely those aged limbs have need of rest ! ' 
 There did he stand with his old armor on, 
 Ere, gonfalon in hand that streamed aloft, 
 As conscious of his glorious destiny, 
 So soon to float o'er mosque and minaret,
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 55 
 
 He sailed away, five hundred gallant ships, 
 Their lofty sides hung with emblazoned shields, 
 Following his track to fame. He went to die ; 
 But of his trophies four arrived erelong, 
 Snatched from destruction the four steeds divine, 
 That strike the ground resounding with their feet, 
 And from their nostrils snort ethereal flame 
 Over that very porch." 
 
 ROGERS. 
 
 THE next afternoon, as Winnie and Tib were 
 returning from their sketching earlier than 
 usual, in order to be in time for Adelaide's re- 
 ception, they were greeted by a hearty shout 
 from an approaching gondola. 
 
 It was John Nash, Stacey Fitz- Simmons 's 
 friend and protege, who had decided to return 
 to America by way of Italy. 
 
 " You must come with us," Winnie urged, 
 after the first greetings. " Adelaide will be 
 glad to welcome you to Venice"." 
 
 u Nothing would please me better than to 
 see Professor and Mrs. Waite, whom I have 
 not met since the summer the professor had his 
 studio in the windmill at Shinnecock ; but you 
 know I am as out of place at a reception as 
 Noah's ark would be among these gondolas." 
 
 But John's objections were quickly over-
 
 56 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 ruled, and he allowed himself to be taken a 
 willing captive. 
 
 "I say," he exclaimed, in admiration, as 
 they approached the palace, " you don't mean 
 to tell me that the VVaites live there ! It must 
 cost them a fortune." 
 
 "They and we have the second floor to- 
 gether," Winnie replied " the suite with that 
 arcade of beautiful traceried windows. The 
 house resembles the Ca' d'Oro, and the apart- 
 ments on the second story are more lofty than 
 either of the others." 
 
 " That is odd," John replied, " for I should 
 say, judging from the outside, that the height 
 of the first and second floors was precisely the 
 same." 
 
 "Oh, no," Winnie replied positively; "I 
 have been inside the janitor's apartment on the 
 water-level, and it is not nearly so high studded 
 as Adelaide's. You are right, though, about 
 the effect from the exterior. The only ex- 
 planation is that there must be a little mez- 
 zanine story ; but as many times as I have been 
 here I have never noticed any landing or doors 
 opening on the staircase until we reach Ade- 
 laide's apartment."
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 57 
 
 They stood within the high entrance hall 
 now, and could see that Winnie was correct ; 
 the staircase led straight up, without a stop or 
 turn, to the level of the rooms occupied by the 
 Waites. . 
 
 " The mezzanine may have a staircase of its 
 own communicating with an entrance at the 
 side or back of the house," Tib suggested ; 
 " or it may be arranged like our duplex flats in 
 America, and be approached by a staircase 
 leading down from Adelaide's suite^ or upward 
 from the janitor's." 
 
 "That seems sensible," Winnie remarked; 
 " but how clever of you to have guessed at that 
 explanation !" 
 
 " I did not guess," Tib replied. " I seem to 
 remember to have read somewhere that Vene- 
 tian houses were arranged in that way." 
 
 " It will be very easy to satisfy our curios- 
 ity," said Winnie. "There is the janitor; I 
 am going to ask him." 
 
 The janitor, however, declared that he knew 
 nothing of any intermediate story He occu- 
 pied the lower floor, and had gone over Profes- 
 sor Waite's apartment many times when it was 
 vacant ; there was no mezzanine floor. But the
 
 58 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 girls were not satisfied ; and after the man had 
 retired into his den, John said : " I noticed, in 
 the glimpse which I just had into that room, 
 that not only was it much lower than this en- 
 trance hall, but that the windows on the canal 
 ran up to and apparently beyond the ceiling, 
 for they had square mouldings across the top, 
 while on the outside they are much taller and 
 are arched." 
 
 " Might not the arches over the top be sim- 
 ply an ornamental feature of the facade?" 
 Winnie asked. 
 
 " No," Tib replied ; " there are rooms behind 
 those arches, for I have several times of late 
 seen a man seated within one of the arches. 
 He seems to use the room as a sort of work- 
 shop. Yes, I am positive now that he was 
 printing photographs at the window, for I saw 
 him distinctly enough to recognize him, and it 
 was the young photographer who had such a 
 time in the courtyard where we were sketch- 
 ing." 
 
 " Then the janitor lied ; and yet he had the 
 most innocent expression. " 
 
 " Perhaps he does not know of the existence 
 of these rooms," said Tib ; and her voice had a
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 59 
 
 mechanical sound, as though she were reading 
 something from a book. " It may be a secret 
 chamber. " 
 
 Winnie laughed heartily. " Secret fiddle- 
 sticks, Tib. You are as absurd now as you 
 were clever before. Whatever put such a 
 romantic idea into your head ? You must 
 have been reading the ' Mysteries of Udolfo.' ' 
 
 Tib blushed ; she was usually very practical 
 and unimaginative, and she was puzzled as to 
 what could have suggested such a fancy, and 
 quite ashamed of it. 
 
 " It is a mystery, all the same," said John 
 Nash ; " but Miss Smith's suggestion that the 
 rooms may communicate with Mrs. Waite's is 
 still to be investigated. She may be able to 
 explain everything. ' ' 
 
 "That is true," Winnie assented, "for the 
 young man that Tib speaks of was at one of her 
 receptions. " 
 
 Adelaide greeted them, on their entrance, 
 with an eager " The contessa is here ; let me 
 present you." Then she recognized John 
 Nash, welcomed him cordially, and handed him 
 over to her husband, and led the gids toward 
 the studio.
 
 60 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 11 Who ? the contessa V Winnie asked. 
 
 " She is the owner of this palazzo. She lives 
 in the upper story and rents the more desirable 
 apartments. She is charming just what a 
 contessa should be." 
 
 " If she is the owner of this house, perhaps 
 she or you can settle a question which is 
 troubling us very much at present. Is there or 
 is there not a suite of rooms between your own 
 and the janitor's floor ?" 
 
 " I can settle that ; there is no such suite, I 
 am positive." 
 
 " And no trace of any other staircase or en- 
 trance to the house than the one on the Grand 
 Canal?" 
 
 " Of that I am not so sure. I only know 
 that our apartment, which occupies this entire 
 floor, opens on no other staircase. The con- 
 tessa will tell you." 
 
 " I shall never be able to muster up courage to 
 speak to her," said Tib, " my Italian is so poor." 
 
 " But Contessa Zanelli speaks English," 
 Adelaide replied, presenting Tib to a motherly 
 lady with beautiful white hair, who greeted 
 her in such perfect English that Winnie ex- 
 claimed in surprise.
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 61 
 
 "It is little wonder," the contessa replied 
 with a smile, " since it is my native language. 
 I am an American, and though I have not re- 
 turned to the States but once since my mar- 
 riage, I am proud of my country, and am glad 
 to meet Americans. I have been so glad to 
 have my son know Professor and Mrs. Waite, 
 for hitherto the American women whom he has 
 met have not been of the serious type which I 
 most admire. We see plenty of beautiful girls, 
 rich, aristocratic, gay, and even brilliant so- 
 cially, but few earnest students, jand my son is, 
 first of all, a student." 
 
 Tib listened in a dazed way. She had for- 
 gotten to ask about the mysterious mezzanine 
 apartment ; she knew now why it had seemed 
 quite natural to her that there should be such a 
 secret chamber or suite of chambers the reve- 
 lation had come with Adelaide's mention of the 
 name Zanelli. This was Lolo's mother, this 
 Lolo's home, with its queer little suite of rooms 
 which he had discovered, and of which no one 
 else knew. And Lolo himself where was he ? 
 The contessa was speaking now in -reply to 
 Winnie's praise of Venice. "All Venetians love 
 Venice intensely. My son has seen the princi-
 
 62 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 pal cities of Europe, but none of them, for him, 
 is so interesting or so lovely as his native city. 
 His love for her from boyhood has been a pas- 
 sion. When a child I took him with me to 
 America, and he said to me one day, ' Mamma, 
 I can understand just how Jacopo Foscari felt 
 when he came back to Venice, after he was 
 exiled, at the risk of his life. I feel as if I 
 could jump into the ocean and swim all the 
 way to Venice.' I do not know where he 
 learned the story of Foscari not from me cer- 
 tainly ; but it made a great impression on 
 Mm." 
 
 Tib felt like exclaiming : " It was I who told 
 Lolo about the Foscari." She remembered 
 how gayly they would applaud the fiddler 
 crabs as they swam back to shore, and she was 
 filled with a great longing to see her little play- 
 fellow and to talk with him about the old days. 
 Winnie wondered that Tib was so silent ; but 
 the contessa chatted blandly on, with all a 
 mother's sublime confidence that her son must 
 be the most interesting subject of conversation 
 to the world at large. 
 
 " Angelo is writing a book on Venice, and 
 Professor Waite has asked him to read one of
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 63 
 
 the chapters here this afternoon. He has had 
 an idea that he can best tell the history of the 
 city and the people by relating the stories of 
 the houses. He has been taking photographs 
 of the old palaces with which to illustrate his 
 book. Ah ! here he is." 
 
 There was a little flutter of people settling 
 into chairs, for Professor Waite had announced 
 the reading. Tib sank upon the divan beside 
 the contessa, but did not look up. She had a 
 feeling which she knew would be disappointed, 
 that her boy friend Lolo was standing there in 
 his blue-and-white jersey and the crimson 
 purse -shaped cap. Winnie gave a surprised 
 gasp and whispered : " It isn't the elderly Eng- 
 lish architect after all, Tib. Look, it is that 
 very superior young man whom we intrigued 
 so successfully with our composite chatter, and 
 who was so embarrassed with his photography 
 in the old palace." 
 
 Tib looked up. The young man was not em- 
 barrassed now. His face had a sad expression, 
 but lighted with enthusiasm as he warmed to 
 his subject. He described the birth of Venice 
 at first only a seabird's nest among the 
 lagoons and a home for the fishermen of Padua \
 
 64 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 then, as Attila swept down upon Northern 
 Italy in 452, a refuge from the Huns, and a 
 century later from Alboin and his Lombards. 
 He told how those two invasions decided the 
 fugitives to make of their hiding-place a per- 
 manent ho'me, and they returned no more to 
 tfyeir ruined cities except to gather from their 
 former homes such precious marbles and col- 
 umns which the spoiler had left behind ; and 
 these, in love and reverence for their associa- 
 tions, they built first into their churches and 
 afterward into their homes. The people of Al- 
 tino had settled upon one of the islands, which, 
 in memory of the towers of their ancient home, 
 they named Torcello, and their church was the 
 first which was so decorated. This church was 
 taken down in the tenth century, when the 
 patriarch Orso, of noble and touching history, 
 built the cathedral which still stands on the 
 lonely island ; but the marbles brought from 
 Altino were again carefully built into its walls, 
 and may be seen to-day. Such was the first 
 and noblest Venice a cluster of villages, strag- 
 gling along the sides of each muddy, marshy 
 island no columns on the Piazzetta, and the 
 great Piazza a piece of waste land. But already
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 65 
 
 the lagoon was full of boats, and Venice grew 
 like a young plant, like the quick-spreading 
 vegetation of her own warm, wet marshes, day 
 
 by day. 
 
 " A few in fear 
 
 Flying away from him whose boast it was 
 
 That the grass grew not where his horse had trod, 
 
 Gave birth to Venice. Like the waterfowl, 
 
 They built their nests among the ocean waves ; 
 
 And where the sands were shifting, as the wind 
 
 Blew from the north or south where they that came 
 
 Had to make sure the ground they stood upon, 
 
 Rose, like an exhalation from the deep, 
 
 A vast metropolis, with glistening spires, 
 
 With theatres, basilicas, adorned ; 
 
 A scene of light and glory, a dominion 
 
 That has endured the longest among men." 
 
 "Do you ask me," said the speaker, "how 
 from the simple homes of these pioneer refu- 
 gees there was soon developed one of the most 
 beautiful styles of architecture, the most luxu- 
 rious, . costly, and perfect in its satisfying of 
 artistic requirements, that the world has known ? 
 how it happened that this style blossomed im- 
 mediately into perfection, and that with the 
 first financial success of the city there appeared, 
 instead of the tasteless gropings after preten- 
 tious display of a people newly rich, that ex-
 
 66 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 quisite and ' fairest "Venice, a city of graceful 
 arcades and gleaming walls veined with azure 
 and warm with gold, and fretted with white 
 sculpture, like frost upon forest branches ' ? I 
 reply that this beauty had a double origin, and 
 sprang both from honor and dishonor. The 
 Byzantine style, as its name suggests, was not 
 invented in Venice, but borrowed fully devel- 
 oped from the East. The great peculiarity and 
 beauty of Oriental architecture in distinction 
 from all other architecture is its abundant use 
 of glowing color. Venetian travellers had seen 
 the Eastern buildings, and were taken captive 
 by their beauty. As Ruskin has written, ' the 
 Venetians deserve especial note as the only Euro- 
 pean people who appear to have sympathized 
 to the full with the great (color) instinct of the 
 Eastern races. They, indeed, were compelled 
 to bring artists from Constantinople to design 
 the mosaics of St. Mark's ; but they rapidly 
 developed the system, and while the burghers 
 and barons of the North were building their 
 dark streets and grisly castles of oak and sand- 
 stones, the merchants of Venice were covering 
 their palaces with porphyry and gold.' But 
 there was another and more practical reason
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO, 67 
 
 why Venice adopted this style. All stone had 
 to be brought from a distance, while brick could 
 be manufactured at hand. It was easier to 
 build the cathedral in its mass of brick, and then 
 to encrust it with thin layers of precious mar- 
 bles, and adorn it first with pillars and sculp- 
 ture which they had brought from the ruins of 
 the cities from which their forefathers had 
 been exiled, and later which their merchant 
 ships brought back from foreign ports, than to 
 transport from inland quarries huge blocks of 
 coarser building stone in such quantity as 
 would be needed to build so large an edifice as 
 St. Mark's. So the cathedral of San Marco 
 was built and was consecrated in the eleventh 
 century in the dogeship of Vital Falier, and 
 Venice may well love and be proud of San 
 Marco. Walk through the Piazza, whose 
 arches, as Ruskin has said, seem struck back, 
 leaving the great square open in a kind of awe, 
 and look upon that vision which he so well de- 
 scribes : ' A multitude of pillars and white 
 domes clustered into a long, low pyramid of 
 colored light ; a treasure heap it seems, partly 
 of gold and partly of opal and mother-of-pearl, 
 hollowed beneath into five great vaulted
 
 68 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 porches, ceiled with fair mosaic, and beset with 
 sculpture of alabaster clear as amber and deli- 
 cate as ivory, sculpture, fantastic and involved, 
 of palm leaves and lilies, and grapes and pome- 
 granates, and birds clinging and fluttering 
 among the branches, all twined together into 
 an endless network of buds and plumes ; and 
 in the midst of it the solemn forms of angels 
 sceptred and robed to the feet and leaning to 
 each other across the gates. And round the 
 walls of the porches there are set pillars of 
 variegated stones, jasper and porphyry, and 
 deep green serpentine spotted with flakes of 
 snow, and marbles that half refuse and half 
 yield to the sunshine, Cleopatra-like, their 
 bluest veins to kiss : and above them, in the 
 broad archivolts, a continuous chain of language 
 and of life, and above these another range of 
 glittering pinnacles, mixed with white arches 
 edged with scarlet flowers a confusion of de- 
 light, amid which the breasts of the Greek 
 horses are seen blazing in their breadth of 
 golden strength, and the St. Mark's lion lifted 
 on a blue field covered with stars, until at last, 
 as if in ecstasy, the crests of the arches break 
 into a marble foam and toss themselves far into
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 69 
 
 the blue sky in flashes and wreaths of sculp- 
 tured spray, as if the breakers on the Lido 
 shore had been frostbound before they fell and 
 the sea nymphs had inlaid them with coral and 
 amethyst.' Alas ! the beauty which the great 
 word painter describes is not all of that early 
 and innocent period. We had become accus- 
 tomed to build from ruins, to inserting older 
 fragments into modern buildings, and Ruskin, 
 with all his admiration, does not gloss the 
 truth. The practice which began in the affec- 
 tions of a fugitive nation was prolonged in the 
 pride of a conquering one ; and beside the 
 memorials of departed happiness were elevated 
 the trophies of returning victory. The ship of 
 war brought home more marble in triumph 
 than the merchant vessel in speculation, and 
 the front of St. Mark's became rather a shrine 
 at which to dedicate the splendor of miscel- 
 laneous spoil than the organized expression of 
 any fixed architectural law or religious emotion ! 
 And not the cathedral alone, for if the Crusaders 
 could satisfy their consciences with the plea that 
 they were stripping the infidel for the glory of 
 the Church, it was but a step farther to carry 
 the excuse for such robbery to the enrichment of
 
 70 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " ' the lofty walls 
 
 Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces, 
 Whose porphyry pillars and whose costly fronts 
 Fraught with Orient spoils of many marbles, 
 Like altars ranged along the Grand Canal, 
 Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed. ' 
 
 " Seem, did I say ?" said the speaker ; 
 " nay, are ; for these Byzantine palaces, as 
 well as the noble columns of the Piazza and the 
 bronze horses above the portals of San Marco, 
 were direct trophies of the Fourth Crusade, 
 which had its inception in high and holy en- 
 thusiasm, and was adorned by many a deed of 
 valor and self-sacrifice, devotion to religion and 
 to country, but which, alas ! though these high 
 motives led at the outset, degenerated, through 
 the very desire of enriching and beautifying 
 Venice, into a mere piratical expedition, so that 
 these beautiful monuments witness forever to 
 her shame as well as her glory. Better that 
 these beautiful statues, pillars, mosaics, had 
 remained in Constantinople to decorate the 
 harems . and mosques of the infidel, rather 
 than, as spoils of robbers, flaunt their beauty 
 in our till then simple city, and introducing the 
 Saracen style of architecture, bring with it cus-
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 71 
 
 toms of luxury, arts, and learning banned by 
 the Christian Church, and hitherto undreamed 
 of by our people." 
 
 With a quick movement of his hand he 
 threw back a long lock of black hair which had 
 drooped over his forehead, shadowing it as he 
 murmured the last words, and told with pride 
 how the six French knights came to Venice as 
 messengers of the Crusaders to arrange for the 
 transportation of the army by sea to the Holy 
 Land for Venice was the carrying power of the 
 world, and the expedition needed her ships. 
 He read Geoffroy de Villehardouin's own ac- 
 count of the address which he made when bid- 
 den by the Doge Enrico Dandolo to speak for 
 the knights to the people assembled in the 
 church of St. Mark's. 
 
 " ' Messieurs,' said the French knight, ' the 
 noblest and most powerful barons of France 
 have sent us to you to pray you to have 
 pity upon Jerusalem, in bondage to the Turk, 
 and for the love of God to accompany us to 
 avenge the shame of Christ ; and knowing that 
 no nation is so powerful on the seas as you, 
 they have charged us to implore your aid, and 
 not to rise from our knees till you have con-
 
 72 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 sented to have pity upon the Holy Land.' 
 With this, the six ambassadors knelt down 
 weeping. The doge and all the people then 
 cried out with one voice, raising their hands to 
 heaven, ' We grant it, we grant it ! ' And so 
 great was the sound that nothing ever equalled 
 it." 
 
 Venice had pledged to provide transport for 
 four thousand five hundred cavaliers and thirty 
 thousand footmen, with provisions for a year, 
 for \vhich the Frenchmen were to pay well and 
 to send out a fleet of her own of fifty galleys. 
 This was in the winter of 1201 ; it was nearly a 
 year later when the expedition arrived in Ven- 
 ice, and then the knights found that they had 
 promised to pay the Venetians more than they 
 could raise. The Venetians proposed that in 
 lieu of the full price they should pause on their 
 way and subdue Zara, which had rebelled 
 against their rule. This was all that was in- 
 tended at that time, for many of the Venetians 
 had become Crusaders and were as eager as the 
 French knights to rescue the Holy Sepulchre, 
 while a stroke for their country on the way 
 was not inconsistent with this high enthusi- 
 asm.
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 73 
 
 Angelo Zanelli read on from the quaint 
 chronicle. 
 
 " ' One day, upon a Sunday, all the people 
 of the city, and the greater part of the barons 
 and pilgrims, met in San Marco. Before the 
 Mass began the doge rose in the pulpit and 
 spoke to the people in this manner : " Signori, 
 you are associated with the greatest nation in 
 the world in the most important matter which 
 can be undertaken by men. I am old and weak 
 and need rest ; but I perceive that none can so 
 well guide and govern you as I, who am your 
 lord. If you will consent that I should take the 
 sign of the cross for you and direct you, and 
 that my son should, in my stead, regulate the 
 affairs of the city, I will go to live and die with 
 you and the pilgrims." 
 
 " ' When they heard this, they cried with 
 one voice, " Yes, we pray you, in the name of 
 God, take it and come with us. " 
 
 " ' Then the people of the country and the 
 pilgrims were greatly moved, and shed many 
 tears because this heroic man had so many rea- 
 sons for remaining at home, being old. But he 
 was strong and of a great heart. He then de- 
 scended from the pulpit and knelt before the
 
 74 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 altar weeping, and the cross was sewn upon the 
 front of his great cap, so that all might see it. 
 And the Venetians that day in great numbers 
 took the cross. ' : 
 
 Closing the book, Count Zanelli told how the 
 fleet sailed in October, how Zara succumbed, 
 and how, while the Crusaders were in the city, 
 the young Prince Alexis, son of the dethroned 
 Emperor of the Greeks, came to beg them to 
 restore him to Constantinople, where his father 
 lay imprisoned by an unnatural son who had 
 usurped the throne. The purpose of the Cru- 
 sade was deflected still more, for the fleet sailed 
 at once for Constantinople. 
 
 This was Dandolo's hour. Apart from any 
 enthusiasm which he may have felt for the lit- 
 tle prince, he could not have failed to recognize 
 the great advantage it would be to Venice to 
 lay a masterful hand on Constantinople and 
 dictate terms to the empire of the East. The 
 count described Dandolo's heroic bearing in the 
 siege in Gibbon's admiring words : 
 
 " ' In the midst of the conflict the doge's 
 venerable and conspicuous form stood aloft in 
 complete armor in the prow of his galley. The 
 great standard of St. Mark was displayed be-
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 75 
 
 fore him ; his vessel was the first that struck ; 
 and Dandolo was the first warrior on shore. 
 The nations admired the magnanimity of the 
 blind old man ' (the Venetian chronicle says 
 only ' infirm of vision '). ' On a sudden, by 
 an invisible hand, the banner of the republic 
 was fixed on the rampart, twenty-five towers 
 were rapidly occupied, and by the cruel ex- 
 pedient of fire the Greeks were driven from the 
 adjacent quarter.' 
 
 "From this point," said the count, "the 
 glory ends, and the entanglement of mixed 
 motives, sordid desires, and base personal am- 
 bitions began. In midsummer, 1203, Constan- 
 tinople was taken and the old king liberated ; 
 but it presently transpired that his kingdom 
 did not desire him or his younger son. He 
 begged the Crusaders to remain to strengthen 
 his rule, but in spite of their presence in the 
 Bosphorus a revolution took place in the city, 
 the young prince was murdered, and his father 
 died of grief. Then the Crusaders besieged the 
 city again and put it to the sword with terrible 
 slaughter. ' The Venetians only, who were of 
 gentler soul, ' says Romanin, l took thought for 
 the preservation of those marvellous works of
 
 76 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 human genius, transporting them afterward to 
 Venice, as they did the four famous horses 
 which now stand on the facade of the great 
 Basilica, along with many columns, jewels, and 
 precious stones, with which they decorated the 
 Pala d'Oro and the treasury of San Marco.' 
 
 " ' This proof of gentler soul was equally 
 demonstrated,' Mrs. Oliphant remarks, ' by 
 Napoleon when he carried off those same bronze 
 horses to Paris in the beginning of the century, 
 but it was not appreciated by Italy.' 
 
 " And what of Dandolo and the Crusaders, 
 do you ask, after the taking of Constantinople 3 
 Alas ! the original aim of the expedition seems 
 to have been forgotten. Only a few of the 
 knights, true to their first purpose, straggled 
 on in little bands to Palestine ; the others elect- 
 ed Baldwin of Flanders emperor of the East, 
 and themselves lords and suzerains under him. 
 Venice received large possessions in the East 
 and a long list of Mediterranean islands. She 
 was ready now to marry the sea. But Dan- 
 dolo, who i/ad dowered her with glory, with 
 wealth, with beauty, and, alas ! with the shame 
 of pillage, died in Constantinople and was 
 buried with kingly honors in St. Sophia. Bet-
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 77 
 
 ter for Venice if he had given her alone the 
 memory of his valor directed to a single pur- 
 pose, the service of the cross, with no thought 
 of gain even for his country or the Church. 
 Better for the honor of our city if there had 
 been no ' trophies of his mighty deeds,' ' fraught 
 with Orient spoils of many marbles, ' no Byzan- 
 tine palaces in Venice." 
 
 The speaker ceased, and for a moment a 
 hush fell on his audience. Every one felt his 
 earnestness and recognized that here was a 
 son of Venice who loved her too intensely to be 
 gentle with her faults. She must be perfect, 
 this Venice of his adoration, all glorious 
 within. 
 
 To Tib there seemed in his sadness something 
 very personal, as though he had some particu- 
 lar cause to regret the Eastern conquests which 
 gave to Venice so much glory in the eyes of an 
 unreflecting world. Some ancestor of his must 
 have taken part in this glory and shame, but 
 not certainly in the robbery of Saracenic build- 
 ings of their ornaments, for the Palazzo Zanelli 
 was built in a later period and in the Gothic 
 style. Suddenly there crossed her mind the 
 memory of the bad man, the alchemist of
 
 78 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 whom Lolo had told her, who had practised 
 his black art in the laboratory of the secret 
 apartments, and had been carried from it to 
 ignominious death. 
 
 Perhaps the count referred to him when he 
 spoke of " learning banned by the Christian 
 Church." She was not disappointed in the de- 
 velopment of her old playmate. He had ful- 
 filled the promise of his childhood, and was the 
 same thoughtful, gentle spirit. Tib felt as if 
 they might easily take up the old friendship, 
 for they had each grown en parallel lines, and 
 yet with this conviction of sympathy there 
 ,came to her a strange feeling of shyness, a mor- 
 bid shrinking from obtruding herself on his at- 
 tention. 
 
 She came out of her day-dream of the past to 
 hear a buzz of conversation about her. John 
 Nash was very enthusiastic. He was delighted 
 with the essay and wished to ask a hundred 
 questions of the essayist._ 
 
 " I shall look up all these Byzantine houses," 
 he said ; " and I am filled with a great longing 
 to see the real Saracenic architecture which in- 
 spired them. To do that I suppose I ought to 
 go to India, which is impossible. I cannot even
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 79 
 
 afford to continue my trip to Constantinople 
 and Cairo." 
 
 " You might go home by way of Spain and 
 see the mosque at Cordova and the Alhambra," 
 Winnie suggested, " with the other beautiful 
 examples of Arabian architecture at Seville. 
 You have enough for a season's study in the 
 cathedral of San Marco here. It is the noblest 
 specimen of Byzantine architecture I know of, 
 and not, as many suppose, a copy of St. Sophia 
 at Constantinople, but in many respects very 
 different." 
 
 Professor Waite had joined the count on the 
 conclusion of his reading to thank and con- 
 gratulate him. "By the way," he remarked, 
 ' * I want you to meet some friends of ours two 
 young ladies, artists, who are much interested 
 in the palaces of Venice, and are making 
 studies of them. I have here some of their 
 water- colors of bits of the older houses which I 
 would like to show you." 
 
 To the professor's surprise, the count, usually 
 courteous, grew frigid. " Excuse me, my dear 
 sir ; but if you refer to the two young ladies 
 sitting near my mother, do not trouble yourself 
 to present me. I have already met them in a
 
 80 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 certain way ; and (forgive my rudeness) I have 
 not time now to cultivate new acquaintances, 
 nor am I greatly interested in the amateur 
 efforts of artistic young ladies. " 
 
 Others pressed up to meet the count, and the 
 professor, nonplussed and displeased, had no 
 opportunity to say more. As Tib was leaving, 
 she handed him a package. 
 
 " Here are some pen-and-ink drawings," she 
 said, " which I have been making of the Gothic 
 palaces. I shall bring you more, and shall be 
 very proud if your friend thinks them worthy 
 to illustrate his book. Make any arrangement 
 with him you see fit, but please let me be anony- 
 mous. " I would rather he should not know the 
 name of his illustrator." 
 
 The professor, who had been slightly embar- 
 rassed, was much relieved. " Good !" he ex- 
 claimed, " let the drawings be accepted or re- 
 jected on their merits alone. My friend, who 
 is otherwise unprejudiced, has a strange in- 
 credulitv as to the ability of women in art. It 
 will be qune a triumph ; and I shall enjoy his 
 discomfiture when he ascertains that these 
 drawings have been made by a young girl. It 
 may be an assistance in keeping up the incog-
 
 ONE HOUR OF BLIND OLD DANDOLO. 81 
 
 nito if I do not introduce him to you this after- 
 noon. " 
 
 " I would ranch prefer not to meet him," Tib 
 replied hastily ; " but here is John Nash, who 
 is quite eager to make his acquaintance." 
 
 John was accordingly led forward by the pro- 
 fessor, and the two young men, of such widely 
 different social stations and education, soon 
 found that they had much in common in their 
 admiration of the beautiful buildings of Venice. 
 The count invited John Nash to take a gon- 
 dola trip with him the next day, and they 
 talked so long together that when John looked 
 for Winifred and Tib, he found that they had 
 slipped away.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ANGELO ZANELLl'S SECRET. 
 
 NGELO ZANELLI had two profound 
 causes for melancholy one person- 
 al, the other inherited. 
 On his return to Venice 
 from the trip taken to 
 America in his boyhood, 
 he had become absorbed 
 in his studies, entering 
 the University of Padua 
 early, and remaining in it 
 for several post-graduate 
 courses. Returning again 
 to Venice after the death 
 
 of his father, he devoted himself to his mother 
 and to the study of the history of Venice, a 
 study which led him finally to the preparation 
 of the work upon which he was now engaged. 
 Angelo's father had never told his wife the 
 story of the alchemist ancestor, and until his
 
 ANOELO ZANELLPS SECRET. 83 
 
 death she had been ignorant of the existence of 
 the mezzanine story. But when Angelo came 
 back from Padua, and certain changes were 
 made in the disposition of the rooms, he showed 
 her the door behind the portrait and took her 
 into the little rooms. To her everything seemed 
 very simple. It was a doctor's office, long un- 
 used ; and she readily consented to its use by 
 her son as a study and dark room for his 
 photography. 
 
 Widowhood had rendered the contessa averse 
 to society, and they had rented the principal 
 floor of the palazzo, with its grand banquet 
 hall, once used for splendid entertainments, to 
 Professor Waite as residence and studio, and 
 the contessa and her son retired to the upper 
 story. There was no communication between 
 this apartment and the alchemist's rooms ; and 
 so, rather than trouble Professor Waite by pass- 
 ing so often through his studio, the count decid- 
 ed to have the stone work taken out which had so 
 long sealed the door on the side of the Canal del 
 Espirito, though this was an act in defiance of 
 the seal of the Church set upon it so long ago. 
 When the attention of the girls had first been 
 called to the door by Tribolo, it was in broad
 
 84 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 
 
 daylight, and they had seen that it was blocked 
 with rough stones. But these had been re- 
 moved before they passed that way again, on the 
 night of the festa. The man whose gondola 
 they had followed, and who had paused before 
 the door, so deeply in shadow that they had not 
 noticed that the wall had been taken down, 
 was the count. Tribolo had taken him for the 
 ghost of the old alchemist, and had imagined 
 that he had passed through the solid stone 
 and, indeed, the appearance had been very un- 
 canny ; and it was a long time before the girls 
 discovered that the door had been opened, for 
 Tribolo could not be persuaded to pass through 
 the canal again. 
 
 It so happened that the old janitor had never 
 heard that the count used the suite of rooms 
 or had opened the door. He knew, of course, 
 of the existence of the apartment and the popu- 
 lar story of its being haunted, but in his opin- 
 ion it was a disgrace to be stoutly contradicted ; 
 and so when questioned by the girls and John 
 Nash he had denied its existence. In the 
 mean time Angelo Zanelli found the rooms a 
 very congenial retreat. He took his coffee in 
 the early morning upon the balcony, and then
 
 ANGELO ZANELLl'8 SECRET. 85 
 
 left the house by the front door in his gondola, 
 usually rowing himself, for he did not go far. 
 He simply turned into the Canal del Espirito 
 and fastened the gondola to the hitching-post 
 before the alchemist's door for he found the 
 seclusion of his ancestor's laboratory very 
 favorable to quiet writing, reading, and the de- 
 veloping and printing of his photographs.; and 
 so it became his habit every day to unlock this 
 postern door and disappear mysteriously from 
 the world. He used the old magician's cabinet 
 for his writing-desk, and for a time wrote on 
 his book without interesting himself in the 
 papers of the alchemist. 
 
 One day, however, a yellow parchment nailed 
 to the interior of the cabinet door caught his 
 eye. It was headed with a black cross and read 
 in Latin as follows : 
 
 " To all to whom this paper may come : Be 
 It known that this is a true account of the trial 
 of Giovanni Zanelli, doctor of medicine and 
 alchemist, before the Holy Office of the In- 
 quisition, therein he was convicted of in- 
 troducing the plague into Venice, being bribed 
 thereto by ib Sultan of Turkey, and was 
 charged with the concoction of poisons and
 
 86 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 the practice of alchemy and other heinous prac- 
 tices." 
 
 Filled with horror, Angelo read the paper to 
 the end. It seemed that his ancestor had ac- 
 quired much of his knowledge in the Saracen 
 University of Toledo, where he had studied 
 chemistry at that time called alchemy. Con- 
 vinced of the knowledge of the Saracen physi- 
 cians, he pursued his travels to Eastern lands, 
 and there made studies of the plague, and orig- 
 inated ideas of his own as to the disease. Re- 
 turned to Venice, he shut himself in his labora- 
 tory, pursuing experiments in chemistry which 
 were looked upon with suspicion by the Church 
 for his travels and studies among the infidels 
 were well known and he drew upon himself 
 remark by dressing in semi-Oriental fashion 
 and by wearing a full beard. 
 
 He was charged, too, with manufacturing 
 poisons for Caesar Borgia, and the charge was 
 partly proved by portions of a correspondence 
 which had passed between them. But the di- 
 rect crime for which he was executed, and for 
 which, if it was really committed, he richly de- 
 served death, was for introducing and spread- 
 ing the plague in Venice. The Holy Office
 
 ANGELO ZANELLP8 SECRET. 87 
 
 attempted to make him confess under torture 
 that he had received vast sums from the Sul- 
 tan for committing this nefarious crime ; but 
 this he denied to the last. It was, however, 
 clearly proved, from the evidence of eye- 
 witnesses, that he had obtained the blood of 
 plague-stricken persons and had inoculated 
 other patients with the same ; and this he did 
 not deny, but brazenly asserted was an experi- 
 ment with a view to their cure. The Holy 
 Office could accept no such flimsy excuse as 
 this ; and even to Angelo this revelation, com- 
 ing before the announcement of the discovery 
 of antitoxine, seemed proof conclusive of his 
 ancestor' s guilt. He was overcome with shame, 
 and he did not attempt to read a diary, which 
 he afterward discovered in a secret compart- 
 ment of the cabinet, which had baffled the 
 search of the inquisitors, who had burned all 
 other papers, together with the fine medical 
 library, and many Arabian manuscripts, in the 
 auto-da-fe which consumed the body of the 
 sorcerer himself. 
 
 This was Angelo' s inheritance of shame ; but 
 he had a more personal grief. Like a dream, 
 indistinct in certain details, but wonderfully
 
 88 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 clear in others, he had always remembered his 
 little playmate, the child who, without having 
 ever seen Venice, loved it as much as he did, 
 and knew so much more than he about its old 
 legends and traditions. He had never cared for 
 these old stories till she told them to him ; 
 they had turned the current of his life and 
 made him an ardent student of the literature 
 and history of his country. As a child it had 
 not occurred to him to write to her, but only 
 to wait patiently until happy fate should bring 
 them together again. When, as a youth, this 
 method of communication did suggest itself, he 
 could not remember her real name, only what 
 they had decided it should be some day Nel- 
 lie Zanelli. Lately he had come across the sil- 
 ver bonbonniere, the mate to the one which he 
 had given her. He recalled the circumstances 
 vividly, and at first it gave him pleasure, for 
 he felt that as the name Zanelli was engraved 
 on the box, she knew his name, and that this 
 slender clew might some day bring about their 
 meeting. But this feeling was speedily over- 
 shadowed by a great dread. He remembered 
 perfectly where he had found this strange 
 double box, and as he opened his part and
 
 ANGELO ZANELLI'S SECRET. 89 
 
 looked at the amber-like globules, a distrust 
 glided, serpent-like, into his mind. He exam- 
 ined the lid of the box with a magnifying- 
 glass, for there seemed to be some inscription 
 engraved within it. Little by little it came out 
 with startling distinctness : " This is the fa- 
 mous Borgia poison. One pellet dissolved in 
 wine will produce death." He was so over- 
 come with horror that he was almost paralyzed. 
 This, then, was the farewell present which he 
 had given his little playmate a poison in the 
 guise of innocent-appearing bon-bons, which, 
 if taken by herself or by any one else, would 
 result in certain death. Perhaps the child had 
 long ago died, a victim to his boyish ignorance 
 and carelessness. He wrote at once to his 
 great-aunt, the sister of Captain Snyder, ask- 
 ing what had become of the little girl who at 
 the time of his visit was their nearest neighbor. 
 He was partly relieved by her reply. The lit- 
 tle girl was not dead. She had become an art- 
 ist, and had lately visited her parents on Long 
 Island previously to going abroad. This altered 
 a resolve that Angelo had made to visit Amer- 
 ica if Nellie was still alive, seek her out, and 
 tell her of the dangerous character of the pres-
 
 90 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 ent which he had unwittingly given her. Nel- 
 lie was somewhere in Europe ; but Aunt Eliza 
 had neglected to give him her last name or her 
 present address. For this he wrote, and for it 
 he now waited with great impatience. Neither 
 of these troubles the long-inherited disgrace, 
 which his father had known but had kept se- 
 cret, hoping that the pain of its knowledge 
 might be spared his descendants, nor this fear 
 of an agency for evil placed by his own act 
 near a sweet and innocent being whose mem- 
 ory he cherished did he feel that he could 
 share with his mother. 
 
 But he was not an adept at dissembling ; and 
 she, watching him as mothers do, knew that 
 her son had a secret grief or fear whose nature 
 she could not guess, but which filled her with 
 more alarm than a knowledge of the facts 
 themselves would have done. It was some- 
 thing which had made him declare very seri- 
 ously that he could never many, and which 
 made him more and more a solitary and mel- 
 ancholy man. And yet Angel o was not morose 
 by nature, and sometimes his gay, sweet dis- 
 position would nicker up like a flame through 
 a charred log and dance brightly for a time,
 
 ANOELO ZANELLP8 SECRET. 91 
 
 and he would tuck his mother's arm within his 
 own, and placing her in his gondola, row her 
 far out on the lagoons for a day of pleasure, 
 and he would sing the Venetian songs merrily 
 and echo the cries of the boatmen and fisher- 
 men in pure boyish fun. But always, as he 
 moored the gondola in front of the palace steps, 
 fastening it to one of the decorated hitching- 
 posts that sprout like asparagus stalks from the 
 water, the gloom of the shadow fell again upon 
 his face. Close to his heart, consumed by his 
 gnawing anxiety as to the deadly work that 
 the Borgia poison bon-bons might do, he carried 
 the twin box ; and he had taken an oath, fool- 
 ish and wicked, though prompted by a sense of 
 justice, that if he should hear of a life lost 
 through his childish fault he would take his 
 own life in the same way as punishment and 
 reparation. 
 
 But with all his trouble, Angelo Zanelli was 
 still a young man, and not unimpressionable. 
 He had noticed the young American girls even 
 before the luckless dialogue which they had en- 
 acted for their own entertainment, and each 
 time that he had met them sketching in the old 
 courtyards the girl with the Madonna face had
 
 92 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 interested him more and more. He was angry 
 with himself that this should be, that the 
 witchery of a mere face should possess such 
 power over him, when he had such conclusive 
 proof of her frivolous mind. He had consis- 
 tently avoided meeting her, always leaving his 
 favorite morning haunt, the balcony opposite 
 the Salute, as soon as he could hear the young 
 ladies just inside their windows chatting over 
 their breakfast. He even congratulated him- 
 self on the rudeness with which he had declined 
 Professor Waite's offer to present him, but for 
 all this the sweet young face would persist in 
 haunting his thoughts. To interest himself 
 actively in some one else, he had taken upon 
 himself to act as guide to John Nash, and pro- 
 ceeded to introduce hjm to all his favorite nooks 
 in Venice. John was appreciative, quick, and 
 artistic to his finger-tips. It was a pleasure to 
 enlighten his ignorance. He was impressed by 
 the colorful harmony of San Marco, but he per- 
 sisted obstinately in enjoying quite as much 
 the delicate tracery of the Venetian Gothic ; 
 and when Professor Waite handed the count a 
 set of pen-and-ink drawings of the facades of 
 Gothic palaces, and remarked that they were
 
 ANGELO ZANELLl'S SECRET. 93 
 
 offered as illustrations for his book by a young 
 artist who wished to be nameless, he at once 
 concluded that they were by John Nash. 
 
 " They are admirable," he said as he glanced 
 them over, " and I think I can guess who drew 
 them." 
 
 " Then do not disclose your suspicions to the 
 artist," the professor replied, "but carry on 
 all negotiations through me. It may seem 
 strange to you that such modesty and sensi- 
 tiveness can exist hand in hand with such tal- 
 ent ; but this is the condition on which they 
 are submitted." 
 
 When, later, Angelo Zanelli looked the 
 drawings over more carefully, another point 
 struck him, which seemed to prove that they 
 had been made by John Nash. It was John's 
 familiarity with each of the palaces represent- 
 ed. This was quite natural, for he had accom- 
 panied the girls on a number of their sketching 
 excursions, and had talked over the buildings 
 with them as they met at the hotel. 
 
 The count had laid the package of drawings 
 aside, and had not examined them closely until 
 Professor Waite recalled them to his memory a 
 week later by presenting him with another set
 
 94 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 He was both surprised and delighted, and he 
 could not imagine why John should wish to 
 make a secret of their authorship, especially as 
 it seemed to the count so very apparent. Here 
 in the second set were the facades of palaces 
 which he had recommended to John (and to 
 which the faithful fellow had immediately 
 guided Tib). The first set was made up entire- 
 ly of palaces on the Grand Canal, to which every 
 gondolier convoys the tourist, but those of the 
 second week he was sure could not have been 
 discovered by a new-comer without his direc- 
 tion. It was very foolish for John to insist on 
 his incognito, and it was almost more than the 
 count could do to respect it.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE GOTHIC PALACES. 
 
 HONG the Gothic pal- 
 aces which Tib had 
 drawn, there were 
 none whose details 
 she had copied with 
 more fidelity and affec- 
 tion than the little Pa- 
 lazzo Contarini, whose 
 upper stories are shown 
 at the head of this chap- 
 ter* Beside this she had 
 sketched the Ca' d'Oro, 
 the Gmstiniani, the Foscari, with parts of 
 several others. And as these are the build- 
 ings which first fascinate the eye and win 
 the heart of every visitor to Venice, a word of 
 description may not be out of place. 
 
 The Ca' d'Oro, or Casa Doro, so called either 
 from its gildings or because it once belonged to
 
 96 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 the Doro family, is one of the most fascinating 
 of the Moorish-Gothic palaces, and it shows 
 best the transition from the Byzantine to the 
 Gothic style, combining as it does many fasci- 
 nating features of both. 
 
 The fronts of the old Byzantine palaces, as 
 illustrated in the Fondaca dei Turchi, consisted 
 of two long arcades of arches ; but in the Gothic 
 the central portion only was open, while these 
 arched spaces were contrasted by solid walls on 
 either side, framing the ornate openings and 
 giving an effect of more solidity to the entire 
 building. The Ca' d'Oro has only one of these 
 solid wings, as the building was never finished ; 
 but this slight irregularity added the charm of 
 waywardness and capricious picturesqueness to 
 this radiant, fairy-like structure, and perhaps 
 this very inconsistency has caused it to be de- 
 nominated " the embodiment of the feminine'* 
 among the more dignified and manly Renais- 
 sance palaces. The metaphor inight be carried 
 still further, and the query raised whether the 
 graceful, wayward bride were quite happy in 
 her association with her heavier and somewhat 
 pompous companion, a Renaissance palace now 
 turned into a hotel. The Ca' d'Oro has suffered
 
 THE GOTHIC PALACES. 97 
 
 much from neglect and restoration. Its interior 
 staircase, said to have been the most interesting 
 of its kind in Venice, was broken up and sold 
 for waste marble. But through all its vicis- 
 situdes (still like a noble-hearted woman) it has 
 preserved its cheerful character elegant, noble, 
 gay. Tib was sure that there never were skele- 
 tons in its closets or festering corpses buried 
 beneath its pavements. Only pure and lovely 
 ladies, like the originals of Rosalba Carriera's 
 pastels, leaned over those lace-like balconies ; 
 
 * 
 
 only honorable as well as debonair noblemen 
 walked in those beautiful corridors. The pal- 
 ace has such a bright and happy look that 
 nothing' evil or sinister could make its home 
 here. 
 
 And yet Tib found that one of the saddest 
 tragedies of Venice brought ruin to two noble 
 houses whose homes were palaces of this same 
 lightsome, Venetian- Gothic architecture. These 
 two palaces, the Contarini and the Ca' d' Oro, 
 were among the first which she drew. Perhaps 
 it was principally from association, but Tib 
 loved the little jewel-box Contarini palace quite 
 as much as the more admired Ca' d'Oro, for it 
 was from this exquisite little building that a
 
 98 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 daughter of that house was rowed in the bucen- 
 taur or state gala barge to her marriage with 
 the unfortunate Jacopo Foscari, while a bridge 
 of boats was thrown across the Grand Canal for 
 the bridegroom and his retinue of three hun- 
 dred horse, and tournaments were held for 
 three days in the Piazza of San Marco. 
 
 This was the story which had caught her 
 childish fancy, and she drew with infinite pa- 
 tience and with real love the fanciful whorls 
 of the balcony, which reminded her of fern 
 fronds and other convoluted forms of leaf 
 unfolding, rather than the geometrical frost 
 crystals of quatrefoils and trefoils repeated in 
 the Ducal Palace and in the stately house of 
 the Foscaris. This design, copied again and 
 again in the palaces built shortly after the 
 Ducal Palace, seemed a little mechanical at last, 
 and in its paucity of invention reminded her of 
 the ease with which Lolo stamped quatrefoils 
 and trefoils in the sand with his tin cake-cut- 
 ter. But it was an argument for the inherent 
 beauty of these simple forms that she never 
 really wearied of them even in their multifa- 
 rious repetition. The Foscari palace, too, the 
 same that was built during the glorious doge-
 
 THE GOTHIC PALACE. 99 
 
 ship of the elder Foscari, to conform with the 
 growing state of his house, was so dignified, so 
 in keeping with the upright character and 
 splendid ability of the man who ruled Venice 
 during her most brilliant period, and bore his 
 loss of office with such nobility that it reflected 
 disgrace only upon the enemy that planned it, 
 that Tib inclined her head with involuntary 
 reverence each time that her gondola passed it. 
 She remembered how the old doge had endured 
 his son's sentence, counselling him to submit to 
 the punishment decreed by Venice, and how, 
 when deposed through the same malice which 
 had occasioned the sufferings and death of his 
 son, he had passed down the Giant's Staircase 
 with the same dignity that he had mounted it 
 to his coronation. But the walls of his home 
 could not shut out the pealing of the great bell 
 announcing the accession of a new doge, and 
 with that peal his great heart broke. Many of 
 the gondola posts in front of the palaces were 
 surmounted by the ducal cap, proclaiming that 
 the building had been the home of a doge. 
 Next door to the Foscari palace was another 
 which shared this honor one of the three pal- 
 aces of the Giustiniani. There is a romantic
 
 100 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 legend connected with this family which has 
 often been related. During one of the wars of 
 Venice with the Greeks in the twelfth century, 
 every known male member of the house was 
 slain ; but the state, not willing that this heroic 
 race should perish from the earth, remembered 
 a young monk of the family in the Convent of 
 San Niccolo on the Lido, and obtained a dis- 
 pensation from the Pope to allow him to quit 
 his convent, return to the world, and, marrying 
 Anna Michieli, the daughter of the doge, found 
 anew the ancient house. Later in life, when 
 five sons had been given them (" among whose 
 descendants," says the chronicle, "afterward 
 flourished men of the highest intellect and great 
 orators' ') Niccolo Giustiniani and his wife part- 
 ed, and gave the remnant of their lives to the 
 cloister. 
 
 In the seventeenth century the doge's cap 
 crowned the gondola post, and it was about 
 this time that different descendants of the monk 
 built the three Gothic palaces in the noblest 
 site on the Grand Canal, whence, on one hand, 
 you can look down to the Bialto Bridge, and 
 on the other far up toward the Church of the 
 Salute. Mr. and Mrs. William Dm Howells
 
 THE GOTHIC PALACE. 101 
 
 lived during their last year in Venice in one 
 of these magnificent buildings. Speaking of 
 their housekeeping in the Palazzo Giustiniani, 
 which Adelaide's in the Palazzo Zanelli greatly 
 resembled, he says : 
 
 " If the furniture of the principal bedroom 
 was somewhat scanty, its dimensions were un- 
 limited. The ceiling was fifteen feet high, and 
 was divided into rich and heavy panels, adorned 
 each with a mighty rosette of carved and gilded 
 wood two feet across. The parlor had not its 
 original decorations in our time, but it had once 
 had so noble a carved ceiling that it was found 
 worth while to take it down and sell it into 
 England ; and it still has two grand Venetian 
 mirrors, a vast and very good painting of a 
 miracle of St. Anthony, and imitation antique 
 tables and armchairs. The last were frolicked 
 all over with carven nymphs and cupids ; but 
 they were of such frail construction that more 
 than one of our American visitors was dismayed 
 at having these proud articles of furniture go 
 to pieces upon his attempt to use them like 
 mere armchairs of ordinary life." 
 
 These four palaces the Ca' d'Oro, the Con- 
 tarini, the Foscari, and the Giustiniani Tib
 
 102 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 had drawn most lovingly ; bnt she also sketched 
 a number of other Gothic palaces the Hotel 
 Danieli, formerly the home of the Nani Mo- 
 cenigo family ; the Palazzo Morosini, the Palaz- 
 zo Cavalli, with its carved lions looking a bit 
 out of place in the glistening whiteness of its 
 restoration among its time-discolored neighbors. 
 After haVing become well acquainted with 
 the Grand Canal, they found it a most fascinat- 
 ing occupation to make tours of exploration in 
 the smaller waterways, and Tribolo would row 
 them through strange labyrinths, around sharp 
 corners, and under shadowy bridges to see some 
 pile of magnificence in ruins. They discovered 
 one such on a narrow caDal crowded by squalid 
 buildings swarmed with children and with the 
 very poorest people. They called it their pal- 
 ace, and fancied that they owned it by right of 
 discovery, until John Nash told them that this 
 was Count Zanelli's favorite palace, and one 
 which he had especially advised him to make a 
 sketch of, drawing his attention to the fact 
 that Ruskin had also given the seal of his ap- 
 proval to the Palazzo Bernardo by declaring it, 
 " after the Ducal Palace, the noblest in effect 
 of all in Venice."
 
 THE GOTHIC PALACE. 103 
 
 The count had indicated many walks which 
 could be taken, for streets and squares are so 
 connected by the network of narrow sidewalks 
 which border the canals, and by the infinitude 
 of bridges which cross them, that he who 
 knows the city only by gondola has lost many 
 of its most picturesque aspects. There was a 
 noble door opening upon a little \uay which 
 she drew in detail, half expecting that the 
 wicket, made for examination of the stranger 
 who struck its ponderous fish-shaped knocker, 
 might open and the porter order her to be gone. 
 Instead of this, some children in the garden 
 within climbed a cherry-tree that leaned over 
 the wall and showered cherries upon her as she 
 drew. 
 
 They were not privileged to see the interiors 
 of many of these private palaces ; but they 
 knew that this was Venice's grandest era, and 
 they could form a good idea, from the decora- 
 tions of the Ducal Palace, of what the beauty of 
 these princely homes must have been. How- 
 ells tells us of the grand ball-room of the Pisani 
 Palace, " where might have danced that Con- 
 tarini who, when his wife's necklace of pearls 
 fell upon the floor in the way of her partner,
 
 104 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICb. 
 
 the King of Denmark, advanced and ground it 
 into powder with his foot, that the king might 
 not be troubled to avoid treading on it. " He 
 tells, too, of the magnificent country-seat of 
 the Pisani family at Stra, " now with scarcely 
 any addition to its splendor, an imperial resi- 
 dence ; and the Pisani barge, a great gilded 
 affair all carven outside with the dumpling 
 loves and loose nymphs of the period, with 
 fruits and flowers and what not ; and within 
 luxuriously cushioned and furnished, and 
 stocked with good things for pleasure-making 
 in the gross old fashion. " 
 
 Grander than any of the private palaces, from 
 which many of them were copied, the Ducal 
 Palace compelled the most respectful admira- 
 tion of our young artists. Ruskin calls it the 
 central historical building of the world, since 
 it unites all three of the principal styles of Ven- 
 ice, is still chiefly and pre-eminently Gothic. 
 Tib grew to admire it as much as she did San 
 Marco. The long line of its pillars, springing 
 like the stalks of lilies from the ground with- 
 out bases, gave the impression of natural 
 growth. The great rosy wall, cut at intervals 
 by its simple windows, taught the dignity and
 
 THE GOTHIC PALACL 105 
 
 repose of broad spaces unteased by ornament. 
 She studied the capitals of the columns with 
 her Ruskin in hand, and drew the Giant's 
 Staircase, trying to imagine how it looked dur- 
 ing- the coronation of a doge. She walked 
 along the Rlva dei Schiavoni in the direction 
 of the Public Garden to obtain a view of the 
 exquisite Bridge of Sighs spanning the canal 
 between the palace and the gloomy prison. It 
 was no matter that modern writers had proved 
 that no one for whose misfortunes one should 
 weep had ever been confined in those terrible 
 dungeons unless possibly her old hero, Jac6po 
 Foscari. It was enough that he had lan- 
 guished there after torture, and the guide 
 showed them oubliettes wells in the floor of 
 the cells into which victims might be plunged ; 
 while there was truth in the tradition that the 
 prison barge rowed all too frequently to that 
 dfjrk canal, in which rod and net were never 
 allowed to be cast, lest it should reveal the 
 dread secrets of the Council of Ten. 
 
 In the Sala del Major Consilia, arranged in 
 chronological order as a frieze above the other 
 paintings, are the portraits of seventy-two of 
 the one hundred and twenty doges. Every one
 
 106 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 pauses before the black space, in which the fol- 
 lowing inscription takes the place of the cus- 
 tomary portrait : 
 
 " This is the place of Marino Faliero, behead- 
 ed for his crimes." 
 
 But the palace as a whole is lightsome and 
 beautiful, the noblest civic building of the 
 world. No town hall of the North can compare 
 with it for dignity or for gorgeousness of its in- 
 terior decoration, for the great masters of the 
 Venetian school can best be studied in its 
 mural paintings. 
 
 As they stood before Tintoretto's stupendous 
 work, " The Paradise," and Professor Waite 
 explained the plan of its composition in con- 
 centric zones, like the interior of a cupola, the 
 figures of saints, angels, and glorified spirits 
 rising toward the central and highest point, 
 toward Christ and the Madonna, they were 
 struck by the wonderful daring in conception 
 and execution of this master, who could group 
 five hundred figures so intricately and yet so 
 harmoniously. 
 
 Ruskin enumerates fourteen paintings in the 
 Ducal Palace as specially worthy of attention. 
 Indeed, he says that the multitude of works by
 
 THE GOTHIC PALACE. 107 
 
 various masters which cover the walls of the 
 palace is so great that the traveller would better 
 refuse all attention except to these fourteen, of 
 which ten are Tintoretto's. Of these he places the 
 " Paradise" first. The girls studied the series 
 with careful reference to the " Stones of Venice," 
 for Ruskin certainly is Tintoretto's best lover ; 
 and the dashing genius could ask no better in- 
 terpreter and apologist. 
 
 Tib was interested by the four mythological 
 paintings which occupy the angles of the Anti- 
 Col legio ; the faded " Bacchus and Ariadne," 
 which Ruskin assures us was once one of the 
 noblest pictures in the world, and especially by 
 the "Minerva and Mars," which, strange to 
 say, he does not mention. To Paul Veronese, 
 with whom the great critic is not in sympathy, 
 he still gives place in his list of masterpieces of 
 the Ducal Palace for three paintings : the 
 " Europa," in the same room as the foregoing, 
 the Venice enthroned on its ceiling, which he 
 admits is " one of the grandest pieces of frank 
 color in the Ducal Palace," and " Venice" and 
 the " Doge Sebastian Vernier" in the Sala del 
 Collegio, to which he gives high praise. This 
 beautiful room, with its roof painted entirely
 
 108 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 by Paul Veronese, is a favorite one of Rus- 
 kin's, and he advises the traveller who really 
 loves painting to " pass the sunny summer 
 mornings there .igain and again, wandering 
 now and then into the Anti-Collegio and the 
 Sala dei Pregadi, and coming back to rest 
 under the wings of the couched lion at the feet 
 of the ' Mocenigo,' " for " he will not otherwise 
 enter so deeply into the heart of Venice." 
 
 Tib felt that Ruskin did great injustice to 
 Titian in mentioning in this list but one of his 
 paintings, " The Doge Grimani Kneeling before 
 Faith," and that in terms of detraction, as a' 
 striking example of his " want of feeling and 
 coarseness of perception." 
 
 There were other paintings not noted at all 
 by the great critic which won her heart, and for 
 a time the Ducal Palace drew Tib away from 
 her architectural drawing. After wandering 
 through its wonderful rooms, she declared to 
 "Winnie, " I can content myself with drawing 
 in black and white no longer. I must drop it 
 for a time, for I am hungry for color and must 
 paint. I want to copy a Titian. I will ask 
 Professor Waite's advice as to which one, and 
 order a canvas at once."
 
 TEE GOTHIC PALACh. 109 
 
 They tapped at the studio door as soon as 
 they reached home, and Adelaide greeted them 
 with delight. 
 
 " I have just been to your rooms to call upon 
 you with the Contessa Zanelli," she exclaimed. 
 "It is a great attention, for she goes out very 
 little. She is very much pleased with you both, 
 but she is especially in love with you, Tib ; and 
 when she asked what part of America was your 
 home, and I told her that you were born at 
 some insignificant little place down on Long 
 Island, she was greatly excited, and asked if it 
 was Scup Haven, which is her own birthplace. 
 I told her I thought that sounded like the 
 name. How funny it would be if you should 
 find that you are from the same place !" 
 
 " I have known it for some time," Tib re- 
 plied. " I remember when the contessa visited 
 her father fifteen years ago. I saw her fre- 
 quently ; we were neighbors." 
 
 " Then why didn't you recall yourself to her 
 when you met her here ? You are the most 
 modest and least assertive little person I ever 
 saw. She will like you all the better, though, 
 for leaving her to make the advances. And 
 she has made them, for she invites us all to
 
 110 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 take a gondola excursion with her to-morrow 
 out upon the lagoons. We are to carry our 
 luncheons and spend the entire day cruising 
 among the islands." 
 
 Winnie uttered a little shriek of delight, but 
 Tib flushed and replied uncertainly, " I am 
 afraid I can't spend the time. I want to begin 
 my painting," and she explained the longing 
 which had come over her. 
 
 " Nonsense, " said the professor good natured- 
 ly ; " J n must have your canvas stretched be- 
 fore you can attack your Titian, and you can 
 take your sketch-box with you. I shall do so, 
 and we shall probably find some good out-of- 
 door studies." 
 
 "Is her son going?" Ifc was Winnie, not 
 Tib, who asked. 
 
 "Of course," Adelaide replied. "We are 
 to take our three gondolas. . The count will be 
 my escort. Mr. Waite will take Winnie, and 
 Tib is to go with the contessa. You must not 
 refuse, for it would offend her greatly. She 
 has settled everything, provided for every thing, 
 and she is not a woman who enjoys having her 
 plans set aside.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 
 
 ROFESSOR WAITE had said that 
 the contessa did not like to have her 
 plans thwarted, and she was rarely 
 called upon to undergo such an 
 experience, for destiny had been 
 very kind to her. 
 ^-4...^,, She adored her 
 son, and he an- 
 swered her affec- 
 tion with filial 
 devotion ; it was 
 the aim of each 
 to make the other 
 
 happy ; an aim in which the son at least was 
 perfectly successful. But in this particular 
 plan of the gondola excursion the contessa had 
 reckoned without her host, or rather with- 
 out her principal guest. She had arranged it 
 as a pleasant surprise Hor her son ; and lo !
 
 112 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 when lie was consulted he was not at all 
 pleased. 
 
 11 You must make your trip without me, 
 mother," he had said when she had informed 
 him that she had invited the Waites and their 
 young lady friends to spend the day upon the 
 lagoons. " I have promised to show the sights 
 of Venice to a young American." 
 
 "Bring him with you," suggested the con- 
 tessa. 
 
 " He would not be an acceptable addition to 
 the party. He is a rough diamond, not, I 
 should judge, used to ladies' society, though 
 he is a very interesting fellow to me." 
 
 The contessa saw that her son was not to be 
 persuaded, and wisely forbore persuasion. At 
 the appointed time she called on the Waites, 
 presented her son's excuses, and the party set 
 out in two gondolas instead of three, the con- 
 tessa appropriating Tib to herself. The con- 
 tessa's gondola was a luxurious one, cushioned 
 and curtained daintily and fitted up with many 
 ingenious little contrivances for comfort, more 
 roomy than a carriage, with lockers for lunch- 
 eon, for books, for sketching materials, with a 
 warm hood for inclement weather, lanterns for
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 113 
 
 gala evenings, and a fluttering awning that fans 
 and shades on warm summer afternoons. 
 
 The gondola has been best described by Hop- 
 kinson Smith, who has used it for many sea- 
 sons as his out-of-doors studio. How pictu- 
 resquely he writes ! 
 
 " In my experience there is nothing like a 
 gondola to paint from, especially in the' sum- 
 mer. Then all these Venetian cabs are gay in 
 their sunshiny attire, and have laid aside their 
 dark, hooded cloaks, their rainy day mackin- 
 toshes their felsi and have pulled over their 
 shoulders a frail awning of creamy white, with 
 snowy draperies at sides and back, under which 
 you paint in state or lounge luxuriously, drink- 
 ing in the beauty about you. A cozy curtain- 
 closed nest, a little boudoir with down cushions 
 and silk fringes and soft morocco coverings, 
 kept afloat by a long, lithe, swan-like, moving 
 boat, bearing itself proudly with head high in 
 air alive or still, alert or restful, and obedient 
 to your lightest touch half sea-gull revelling 
 in the sunlight, half dolphin cutting the dark 
 water. " 
 
 Tib settled herself luxuriously by the side of 
 the contessa, who chatted most entertainingly,
 
 114 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 describing the different buildings which they 
 passed. She had v chosen a tortuous route 
 through the northeastern quarter of Venice, 
 their destination for luncheon a restaurant near 
 the house that once was Titian's home, and 
 possessing from , its terrace, where they would 
 take their noonday repast, the same beautiful 
 view across the lagoon of the Dolemite Alps. 
 The part of Venice through which they thread- 
 ed their way before coming out on the northern 
 shore is not visited by the hurried tourist, 
 though it is dear to the heart of the artist and 
 all lovers of the picturesque. The authors who 
 have loved Venice most have each found it out 
 and written lovingly of its humbler charms 
 for it is the quarter of the poor and though 
 you pass many a noble house, which has been 
 the home of the illustrious of ages past, these 
 palaces have now an air of aristocratic decay 
 and a proud poverty which disdains alike as- 
 sistance or pity. Each member of the party 
 could refer to some writer who had sung the 
 praises of this particular trip. It was Adelaide 
 who pointed out that Hare was speaking of this 
 northeastern quarter of Venice when he wrote : 
 "This excursion is one which gives an ad-
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 115 
 
 mirable idea of the quiet bits of beauty in the 
 side canals, of the marvellous variety of the 
 palaces rising steeply from the pale green 
 water, of the brilliant acacias leaning over the 
 old sculptured walls, of the banksia roses fall- 
 ing over the parapets of the little courts like 
 snowdrifts, and of the tamarisks feathering 
 down into the water. " 
 
 Winnie had discovered that her favorite 
 author, Dickens, loved this quarter of the work- 
 men, and wrote of it : " Floating down narrow 
 lanes, where carpenters, at work with plane and 
 chisel in their shops, toss the light shaving 
 straight upon the water, where it lies like a weed 
 or ebbs, away before us in a tangled heap ; past 
 open doors, decayed and rotten from long steep- 
 ing in the wet, through which some scanty 
 patch of vine shines green and bright, making 
 unusual shadows on the pavement with its 
 trembling leaves ; past quays and terraces, 
 where women, gracefully veiled, are passing 
 and repassing, and where idlers are reclining in 
 the sunshine on flagstones and on flights of 
 steps ; past bridges, where there are idlers, too, 
 loitering and looking over ; below, stone balco- 
 nies erected at a giddy height ; past plots of
 
 116 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 garden, theatres, shrines, prodigious piles of 
 architecture Gothic- Saracenic fanciful with 
 all the fancies of all times and countries ; past 
 buildings that were high and low, and black 
 and white, and straight and crooked, mean and 
 grand, crazy and strong ; twining among a tan- 
 gled lot of boats and barges, and shooting out 
 at last into a Grand Canal." 
 
 Their own course was in the contrary direc- 
 tion. At almost the first turning after leaving 
 the highway of the Grand Canal they came 
 upon the beautiful door of the Palazzo Sanudo, 
 a noble Gothic fourteenth-century palace with 
 Byzantine cornices. This door is the most per- 
 fect of its period in Venice, and illustrates the 
 transition from the Byzantine to the Gothic 
 period. They paused to admire its richly 
 carved panels, and the professor pointed out 
 the wicket or little door in the great one, for 
 the examination of the stranger demanding en- 
 trance, and its heavy bronze knocker in the 
 form of a dolphin. There was a tempting 
 garden at its side. Tib remarked that she 
 thought Miss Thackeray must have intended 
 to describe this part of their trip when she 
 wrote this bit of word painting, which had in.
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 117 
 
 pressed her so vividly that she was able to 
 repeat it : 
 
 u Now it is a palace to let, with wooden shut- 
 ters swinging in shadow ; now we pass the 
 yawning vaults of great warehouses piled with 
 saffron and crimson dyes, where barges are 
 moored and workmen strain at the rolling bar- 
 rels. Now it is the brown wall of some garden 
 terrace ; a garland has crept over the brick, and 
 droops almost to the water ; one little spray en- 
 circles a rusty ring hanging there with its 
 shadow. Now we touch palace walls, and with 
 a hollow jar start off once more. Now comes a 
 snatch of song through an old archway ; here 
 are boats and voices ; the gondolier's earrings 
 twinkle in the sun. A little brown-faced boy 
 is lying with his brown legs in the sun on the 
 very edge of a barge, dreaming over into the 
 green water ; he lazily raises his head to look, 
 and falls back again ; now a black boat passes 
 like a ghost ; now it is out of all this swing of 
 shadow and confusion that we cross a broad, 
 sweet breadth of sunlight and come into the 
 Grand Canal." 
 
 They moored their gondolas at the restaurant 
 and followed the professor through a tangle of
 
 118 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 calles, or narrow lanes, to the house once occu- 
 pied by Titian. They had better fortune than 
 most tourists, for they were admitted, and saw 
 a part of the garden which was so extensive 
 and beautiful in Titian's day, running down to 
 the shore and having its own little wharf for 
 the embarkation of its guests. Titian owned a 
 large house, but only occupied the main upper 
 stories, which had a loggia communicating with 
 the garden by a stone staircase. The lower 
 story had no doors or windows upon this gar- 
 den, but fronted upon a side calle, and was oc- 
 cupied, by shops. The house has been much 
 altered since Titian's time, his noble studio cut 
 up into small rooms, and its frescoes pre- 
 sumably by the hand of the master at first 
 whitewashed, then cleaned, taken down, and 
 sold into England. Tib came later to have a 
 greater interest in the garden, as she became 
 better acquainted with the period during which 
 Titian lived, and learned the associations con- 
 nected with the spot. At this, her first visit, she 
 knew only what Howells had written, and she 
 agreed with him that it had " an incomparably 
 lovely and delightful situation." It looked out 
 over the lagoon, across the quiet isle of sepul-
 
 ON TEE LAGOONS. 119 
 
 chres, San Michele, across the smoking chimneys 
 of the Murano Glass Works, and the bell towers 
 of her churches, to the long line of the seashore 
 on the right and to the mainland on the left, 
 and beyond the nearer lagoon islands, and 
 the faintly pencilled outlines of Torcello and 
 Burano in front, to the sublime distance of the 
 Alps shining in silver and purple, and resting 
 their snowy heads against the clouds. It had 
 a pleasant garden of flowers and trees, into 
 which the painter descended by an open stair- 
 way, and in which he is said to have studied 
 the famous tree in the " Death of Peter Mar- 
 tyr." Here he entertained the great and noble 
 of his day, and here he feasted and made merry 
 with the gentle sculptor Sansovino, and with 
 their common friend, the rascal poet Aretino. 
 
 After their visit to Titian's house they 
 lunched al fresco (out of doors) at the little 
 restaurant on the Fondamente Nuove on deli- 
 cious fish, a salad, black coffee, cheese, and 
 fruit, and then their gondolas left the narrow 
 canals and shot out upon the open lagoon. As 
 they passed the cemetery island of San Michele 
 they saw a boat funeral approaching. Sir 
 lently it stole on its way, but it was difficult to
 
 120 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 imagine that the gondolas were other than 
 pleasure boats like their own, for the island 
 villages, white and vermilion, glittered merrily 
 in the silvery blue setting, and there was noth- 
 ing funereal in the scene except the crape-like 
 scarf of smoke floating from the chimneys of 
 the glass furnaces over the island of Murano. 
 This as they approached was seen to be no 
 badge of mourning, but a symbol of activity and 
 prosperity. They paused to visit the churches, 
 the Duomo, with its mosaic Madonna, and the 
 Church of the Angeli to see the portrait of 
 Doge Barberigo kneeling before the Virgin 
 one of the noblest of Giovanni Bellini's can- 
 vases and then they went over the Salviatti 
 Glass Manufactory. 
 
 The contessa called their attention to the 
 wonderful reproductions of the ancient mo- 
 saics. 
 
 An intelligent custodian showed them a large 
 collection of exquisite imitations of the old 
 A r enetian glass in infinite variety of twisted 
 floral forms tinted with the marvellous colors 
 of every gem opal, ruby, aquamarine, emer- 
 ald, milky mottled agate, and gold -flecked crys- 
 tal. He showed them also a cabinet of antique
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 121 
 
 specimens, very rare and valuable, from which 
 these were copied. 
 
 " We have one cup which bears your name," 
 he said to the contessa. "It is the Zanelli 
 beaker, so called from a chemist of note, per- 
 haps of your family, who, it is said, discovered 
 how to mingle reactions in the glass, so that it 
 serves as a detecter of certain poisons. Here is 
 the cap." 
 
 He set before them a delicate glass of ordi- 
 nary aspect, except that a green serpent was 
 coiled about it, forming the handle with one of 
 its convolutions, while its head was buried deep 
 in the interior of the cup, as though thirstily 
 endeavoring to drink its contents. Around the 
 brim of the cup was an inscription in gold in 
 Latin which Winnie translated : "I die to pre- 
 serve life." 
 
 The contessa started. " That," said she, " is 
 a motto painted over the laboratory door of an 
 ancestor of my husband's who was a physi- 
 cian." 
 
 " Then I am sure," said Tib, " that he must 
 have been the inventor of this detective glass. 
 Of what kind of poison does it announce the 
 presence ?' '
 
 122 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 "No one knows," replied the custodian. 
 " The legend says only that if wine containing 
 the celebrated poison of the Borgias is ponred 
 into this cup, the instant that it mounts to the 
 little red tongue of the serpent the glass will be 
 shivered to atoms. No one knows of what the 
 Borgia poison consisted. Possibly, too, the 
 legend of the power possessed by the goblet is 
 a mere fabrication." 
 
 " You could easily ascertain by experiment- 
 ing with different kinds of poisons," Tib re- 
 plied, much excited. 
 
 " Yes, " admitted the custodian; "but it is 
 hardly worth while to prove the truth of the 
 tradition at the expense of shattering this beau- 
 tiful specimen of antique glass. We are more 
 interested in it as a work of art than in proving 
 or disproving idle legends." 
 
 " If this chemist Zanelli was really your an- 
 cestor," Tib said to the contessa as they left 
 the manufactory, " it is probable that you pos- 
 sess among your heirlooms some of this detec- 
 tive glass." 
 
 " It is possible," the contessa replied. " We 
 will ask Angelo ; he seems greatly interested 
 in everything connected with the history of his
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 123 
 
 father's family, though my husband manifest- 
 ed a strange ignorance and indifference to 
 genealogical matters, and always maintained 
 that what one's ancestors had done conveyed 
 neither distinction nor shame upon his descend- 
 ants, but that every man was noble or ignoble 
 according to his own conduct." 
 
 The party embarked again and followed a 
 channel marked in the shallow lagoon by a pro- 
 cession of posts to the island of Burano, for a 
 
 > 
 
 glimpse at the lace-workers, who, under the 
 patronage of the Countess Marcello, have re- 
 vived the manufacture of the exquisite point de 
 Venise. 
 
 Winnie bought a beautiful collar, copied 
 from an antique pattern, worn possibly by 
 Catharine de Cornaro, or designed as she liked 
 to think was quite possible by Eosalba Car- 
 riera, who, before she became a painter, occu- 
 pied herself in this way. It was Professor 
 Waite's turn to hasten them here by reminding 
 them that they would have a very late dinner 
 if they did not immediately proceed to their 
 picnic ground, Torcello. 
 
 In deference to the claims of hunger, they 
 postponed further sightseeing, and ran their
 
 124 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 gondolas up a lonely canal, or rather creek, for 
 in its neglect it was difficult to decide whether 
 it had ever been an artificial waterway, and 
 gliding between grassy banks, they moored in 
 a little inlet back of the ruins of the first 
 church. At a little distance was the Cathedral, 
 with its group of buildings, and close to them 
 the marble seat in the open field called Attila's 
 Throne. Here in the solitude of the deserted 
 city, on grass-grown mounds, ruins of that first 
 city of which the count had told them, they 
 spread their little feast, taken from the well- 
 filled paniers which Tribolo brought to them 
 from the gondolas. The violets leaned their 
 blue heads over the tablecloth, and there was 
 not a sound or glimpse of any human being to 
 interrupt their privacy. 
 
 Just as Winnie had given an artistic touch to 
 the grapes, piled on their own vine leaves, and 
 stood off regarding the effect, wishing that there 
 were other artistic eyes to appreciate it, and 
 Adelaide, as she lifted the last roast chicken 
 from the hamper, was lamenting that there were 
 not more in the party to enjoy the feast, they 
 heard a merry halloo behind them, and turn- 
 ing, beheld another gondola gliding up the
 
 ON TEE LAGOONS. 125 
 
 inlet. It was the count and John Nash ; for, 
 in order to make his excuse true, Angelo had 
 sought John out and taken him away for a 
 sketching trip on the lagoon. Not knowing 
 the destination of his mother's excursion, he 
 had by sheer trickery chance stumbled into 
 the very party which he had determined to 
 avoid. 
 
 There was no remedy for it now, and he came 
 forward with his easy grace, backing up John's 
 exuberant delight with polite courtesy. 
 
 " Just in time for luncheon," was "Adelaide's 
 greeting. " You could not have timed it bet- 
 ter if it had been a rendezvous." 
 
 " How do you know that it was not planned 
 on my part ?". Angelo replied, and his mother 
 pleased for she believed that he had repented 
 and followed them made haste to introduce 
 him to Tib. 
 
 "This is Miss Smith," she said; "and we 
 have just discovered that our parents were 
 neighbors in my old Long Island home. I think 
 you met when you were children, though prob- 
 ably neither of you remember it now." 
 
 Neither remembered ! The good lady little 
 imagined that the childish friendship was the
 
 126 -\YiTCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 most vividly real thing for both in all the melt- 
 ing perspective of their early lives. 
 
 Angelo looked at Tib keenly. No, he would 
 never have recognized his little playmate ; but 
 he was struck again by the placid beauty of her 
 face, a beauty of expression more than of fea- 
 ture, though these were regular a face telling 
 of an earnest, thoughtful mind, of a pure life 
 and high ideals, a face to respect, to trust, and 
 for the few for whom she dropped that quiet 
 barrier of reserve, to love. Angelo Zanelli felt 
 all this as he looked, and at the same time there 
 came upon him a great surging wave of recol- 
 lection of their ideal child friendship, and he 
 exclaimed impulsively, " Is it possible that you 
 are Nellie Zanelli ?" 
 
 Winnie laughed mischievously, and Profes- 
 sor Waite, who was something of a tease, re- 
 plied jocosely that it was impossible to predict 
 what a young lady's name might or might not 
 become, but that at present their young friend 
 rejoiced in a name borne by more distinguished 
 people than any other the world over namely, 
 the noble cognomen of Smith. 
 
 The count showed his vexation and embar 
 rassment ; but Tib explained with perfect self-
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 127 
 
 possession : " When we were playiellows some 
 fifteen years ago, Count Zanelli took a violent 
 dislike to the sound of the word Smith, and 
 amused himself by adopting me as his sister, in 
 order that I might bear a more musical name." 
 
 " I heartily confirm the act of adoption," the 
 contessa. remarked kindly. " Your mother 
 was my dear friend. You must urge your 
 parents to come out to Venice before you return 
 to America." 
 
 Having explained the situation, Tib speedily 
 drew the conversation away from reminiscence, 
 and chatted rather volubly of the places they 
 had seen that morning, of Venice and its his- 
 tory, and of the opening chapter of his own book 
 which he had read at Professor Waite's studio. 
 
 Count Zanelli was not wholly pleased. It 
 seemed to him that she must either have for- 
 gotten all their intense childish affection, all 
 their sympathetic intercourse, which had given 
 to the old days their abiding influence over him, 
 or else that they awoke no such feeling in her 
 memory as in his own. He did not like to have 
 the topic which was uppermost in his mind 
 thus authoritatively dismissed, nor did he care 
 to talk about his own work.. He occupied
 
 128 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 himself with his sandwiches and with serv- 
 ing the Chianti from the slender-necked, 
 silken-tasselled flasks, and allowed others to 
 carry on the conversation, assuming the posi* 
 tion of a silent critic. He recalled his first im- 
 pressions of Tib, and raged inwardly that a girl 
 with so hopelessly frivolous a mind should 
 have a face with such a subtle charm, and that, 
 having it, she should be so coldly irresponsive. 
 But he was not allowed to sulk in silence ; the 
 girls really wished to know more of the history 
 of Torcello, and he could not refuse to give 
 them the information for which they asked. 
 
 " You referred in your lecture to the Patri- 
 arch Orso, ' ' said Winnie. ' ' I believe you said 
 that he was at one time Bishop of Torcello and 
 built this cathedral. I wish you would tell us 
 about him." 
 
 " The history of the entire family is interest- 
 ing," Count Zanelli replied, "and interwoven 
 with that of Venice in its first glorious period. 
 There were three doges in succession. The 
 first abdicated to enter the Church ; the sec- 
 ond, his son, Pietro Orseolo, began to reign in 
 991, and was that leader who cleared the sea of 
 pirates, took their robber-stronghold Lagosta,
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 129 
 
 and brought Istria, Dalmatia, and all the neigh- 
 boring islands under the power of Venice. It 
 was to celebrate this conquest that the cere- 
 mony of Venice wedding the sea was insti- 
 tuted. On his death his son Otto succeeded 
 him, and his younger son, Orso, who had been 
 Bishop of Torcello, was made Patriarch. The 
 two brothers were noble, young, and devoted 
 to each other. For fifteen years each occupied 
 his position of honor with faithfulness Otto a 
 worthy successor of his illustrious father ; 
 Orso busying himself with the building of this 
 cathedral, beautifying it with the old pillars 
 that had been brought from Altinum, and with 
 the others which we have seen to-day. But the 
 Orseolo succession to the dogeship had come to 
 be almost a hereditary dynasty, and the occu- 
 pation of the highest offices, both secular and 
 clerical, by two brothers could not fail to excite 
 the envy of the other nobles. Plots and out- 
 bursts followed, culminating in the banishment 
 of the doge and the elevation of a rival to his 
 seat. But the new doge could not keep what 
 he had seized, and he soon proved himself so 
 incompetent that he was degraded from office, 
 and the populace clamored for the restoration
 
 130 -WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 of Doge Orseolo. But he had so successfuDy 
 hidden his misfortunes in his exile that no one 
 knew where he could be found, and so the 
 Patriarch Orso was called from the cloister to 
 the Ducal Palace to reign provisionally, while 
 a younger brother was sent with a commission 
 to travel through the East and find the ban- 
 ished Otto. 
 
 "I see that Mrs. Waite has brought ' The 
 Makers of Venice ' with her j and I will resign 
 my office of historian and allow Mrs. Oliphant 
 to finish the story from this point." 
 
 The audience protested, but the count was 
 firm. He had seen the book under the cushion 
 of the gondola, and turning to the page, he 
 handed it to Adelaide, and she read aloud : 
 
 " ' The voyage of the embassy occupied more 
 than a year. During these long months Orso 
 reigned in peace. Not a word of censure is 
 recorded of his peaceful sway. In the splendor 
 of those halls which his fathers had built he 
 watched over Venice, on one hand, and on the 
 other for the ships sailing back across the 
 lagoons, bringing the banished Otto home. 
 How many a morning must he have looked out, 
 before he said his Mass, upon the rising dawn
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 131 
 
 and watched the blueness of the skies and seas 
 grow clear in the East, where lay his bishopric, 
 his flock, his cathedral, and all the duties that 
 were his, and with anxious eyes swept the 
 winding of the level waters, still and gray, the 
 metallic glimmer of the aqua morte, .and the 
 navigable channels that gleamed between ! 
 When a sail came in sight between those lines, 
 stealing up from Malamocco, what expectations 
 must have moved his heart ! 
 
 
 
 "'But when the ships came back, their 
 drooping banners and mourning array must 
 have told the news long before they cast an- 
 chor in the lagoon. Otto was dead in exile. 
 There is nothing said to intimate that they had 
 brought back even his body to lay it with his 
 fathers in San Zaccaria. The banished prince 
 had found an exile's grave. 
 
 " ' After this sad end to all his hopes, the noble 
 Orso showed how magnanimous and disinter- 
 ested had been his inspiration. Not for him- 
 self, but for Otto he had held that trust. He 
 laid down at once those honors which were not 
 his, and returned to his own charge and duties. 
 
 " ' Many years after this Orso held his patri- 
 archate in peace and honor, and the name of the
 
 132 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 younger brother, Vitale, appears as his succes- 
 sion, while their sister, Felicia, was abbess of a 
 convent at Torcello. But a connection of the 
 family, Domenico, made an attempt to seize the 
 supreme power, and the people, startled by the 
 fear of dynastic succession, pronounced the race 
 incapable henceforward of holding any office 
 under the republic. The prohibition would 
 seem to have been of little practical importance, 
 since of the children of Pietro Orseolo the Great 
 there remained none except priests and nuns. 
 This story has the completeness of an epic. 
 They lived and ruled and made Venice great. 
 And then it was evident that they had com- 
 pleted their mission, and the race came to an 
 end. Greatness has faded from the ancient 
 commune as it faded from the family of their 
 bishop, and Torcello, like the Orseoli, may seem 
 to look wistfully yet with no grudge across 
 the level waste of the sea to Venice, which 
 has carried her life away. But the story of 
 this tender brother, the banished doge's de- 
 fender, champion, substitute, and mourner, he 
 who reigned for Otto, and for himself neither 
 sought nor accepted anything, is worthy of the 
 scene. '
 
 ON TEE LAGOONS. 133 
 
 "But that does not seem mournful to me," 
 said Adelaide, as she closed the book, " and 
 Torcello never does. I think it is a more beau- 
 tiful thing to close a story nobly than to fritter 
 out at the end, to degenerate, as so many worthy 
 families have done, leaving noble names to be 
 ignobly borne ; and I would rather see these 
 noble buildings empty and desolate than put to 
 vile uses. " 
 
 . " I agree with you, my dear," said the con- 
 tessa. " To me Torcello is not sad. Looking at 
 our beautiful Venice, we cannot regret that she 
 burst this humble chrysalis. Lindsay has 
 something of the same feeling when he says 
 that his emotions here were something akin to 
 ' gazing at the portrait of a hero in his child- 
 hood.' " 
 
 4 ' And now to close our lecture with an object 
 lesson," said Professor Waite, "you must all 
 see the view from the top of the Campanile." 
 
 The girls, acting upon his suggestion, climbed 
 to the top of the tower. Count Zanelli and 
 John Nash followed, and joined them on the 
 summit, where the count pointed out and named 
 the different islands. The sunset was flushing 
 the Alpine range, and the Doge's Palace, San
 
 134 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Marco, and the great Campanile of the Piazza 
 were silhouetted against a sky of beaten gold. 
 Winnie was ecstatic in her enthusiasm, and 
 Tib's face showed that she was drinking in all 
 this beauty with keen delight. 
 
 "How thankful I am," Count Zanelli 
 thought, " that she does not choose this occa- 
 sion to gush. If she had only had the wit to 
 have kept quiet that first afternoon, what a 
 different impression I might have had of her !" 
 He handed Tib his field-glass and watched her 
 as she swept the horizon with it, deciding that 
 he was wrong in thinking that if he were an 
 artist he would paint her looking straight out 
 from the canvas with her soulful eyes fixed on 
 the spectator. No artist could do justice to 
 those eyes ; it would be wiser to paint her in 
 profile as he saw her now, looking away into 
 the distance and quite unconscious that she 
 herself was a beautiful picture. 
 
 They descended the stairs together, and found 
 that Adelaide had packed the picnic baskets 
 and that the contessa was quite ready to return 
 to Venice. The sun had set, and she did not 
 like to be so far out on the lagoons after dark. 
 
 "Do not be alarmed, mother," said the
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 135 
 
 count. " I sent back my gondola on our ar- 
 rival, and shall return with you. I knew you 
 would feel safer to have me with you, and I 
 was sure the Waites could find room in their 
 large gondola for Mr. Nash." 
 
 And so it happened that they drifted back to 
 Venice together in the lovely twilight. The 
 heavy felsa curtains were put back, and Tib sat 
 half reclining among the cushions by the side 
 of the contessa, while Angelo Zanelli sat op- 
 posite. 
 
 The party in the accompanying gondola sang 
 college songs to Winnie's guitar, and Tib and 
 Angelo Zanelli joined in the refrain. The 
 contessa chatted at intervals, but the somno- 
 lent rocking of the boat soon had its effect, and 
 she slept peacefully. Her son tucked the soft 
 wraps about her tenderly and looked at her 
 serene face with loving admiration. " Is she 
 not beautiful ?" he asked impulsively. 
 
 " Yes, indeed,' ' Tib replied with earnestness ; 
 " you are rich in having such a mother." 
 
 He looked up gratefully. " I am rich," he 
 replied ; " 1 have her and Venice. And what 
 do you think of Venice? I remember in the 
 old days you were wonderfully well informed
 
 136 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 for a little girl about our city. I trust it does 
 not disappoint you. It is not very gay so- 
 cially." 
 
 A smile of fine scorn played around Tib's 
 lips. " I cannot imagine that the most world- 
 ly society woman would care for social life 
 here. Venice itself must fill every longing." 
 
 Angelo Zanelli was surprised ; he had net 
 expected such an answer ; but he was not con- 
 vinced of her sincerity. " She will betray her- 
 self soon," he said to himself; " she has 
 learned that pretty speech as a parrot would, 
 by rote." But though he tried her with sev- 
 eral crucial questions, and she was quite unsus- 
 picious of his purpose, she stood her examina- 
 tion very well. " There is one infallible test," 
 he said to himself. " I will take her to the 
 gallery of the Academy and find out what pic- 
 tures she likes ; then I shall really know 
 whether there is any hope for her. " 
 
 The engagement was accordingly made for 
 the following day for Tib was only too grate- 
 ful for an opportunity to view the Venetian 
 masters under the guidance of a cultured Vene- 
 tian. 
 
 Then suddenly, as he looked at her sweet
 
 ON THE LAGOONS. 137 
 
 face, he forgot his purpose of coldly analyzing 
 her intellectual powers, and said impulsively : 
 " I suppose all our childish play under that 
 dilapidated wharf, when we used to dig little 
 canals in the sand and imprison crabs in lobster- 
 pot dungeons, seems very absurd to you now ; 
 but to me that little girl in the ruffled pink sun- 
 bonnet is a very vivid and charming memory. 
 I have forgotten nearly everything I learned at 
 the University of Padua, but I shall never for- 
 get the poems she taught me or our sweet child- 
 ish friendship." 
 
 " Nor I, Lolo." Tib bit her lips, and wished 
 the words back, but it was too late, they could 
 not be recalled. It was as though a flashlight 
 had revealed for an instant the inmost recesses 
 of her soul, and Angelo Zanelli knew that all 
 that dream -life of childhood held the same im- 
 portance for her that it did for him, that the 
 memory of that intimate comradeship, so long 
 interrupted, had been cherished by her as he 
 had cherished it, and might be taken up again, 
 if they should find that they had not grown 
 apart ; that their tastes and sympathies, their 
 intellectual life and moral training had not 
 made a chasm between them so wide that no
 
 138 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 affection could bridge. They were both thank- 
 ful that the gondola had now entered the light 
 and movement of the Grand Canal, that the 
 contessa had awakened, and all was activity, 
 and a joyous tumult of music and cries and 
 laughter precluded all conversation. 
 
 The keel of the gondola grazed gently against 
 the marble stair, and the count sprang to the 
 doorway and assisted his mother and Tib to 
 alight. 
 
 "Good-night, Nellie Zanelli," the contessa 
 called merrily ; but Tib froze instantly into 
 dignity, and the good lady felt that her pleas- 
 antry was ill timed. She had not heard the 
 little phrase, " Nor I, Lolo," or she would have 
 been less distressed at the apparent indiffer- 
 ence of these young people.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 
 
 " There Titian, Tintoret, and Giambellin, 
 And that strong master of a myriad hues, 
 The Veronese, like flowers with odors keen, 
 Shall smite your brain with splendors ; they confuse 
 The soul that, wandering in their world, must lose 
 Count of their littleness, and cry that then 
 The gods we dream of walked the earth like men." 
 
 J. A. SYMONDS. 
 
 NGELO ZANELLI'S mind 
 was in a tumult of doubt 
 and perplexity. He 
 felt strongly attract- 
 ed by this enigmat- 
 ical girl, but at the same 
 time he reasoned with him- 
 self sternly on account of 
 what he considered his in- 
 fatuation. He escorted her 
 to the Academy the next 
 day with a foreboding of 
 disenchantment. " She 
 will show some depth of ignorance and bad 
 taste," he thought, " which will make me feel
 
 140 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 that I can never speak to her again." And so 
 he was in no haste to begin his inquisition, for 
 Tib was unusually pretty that morning. Win- 
 nie had hidden her battered Tarn o'Shanter cap 
 which had done duty all summer, and had lent 
 her own broad-brimmed hat with the curl- 
 ing ostrich plumes. She had tied a broad, soft 
 ribbon around Tib's graceful throat, not com- 
 menting that her color, which came and went 
 with unusual quickness, matched its fresh tint. 
 She had accompanied them to the gallery, but 
 had left them seated before Titian's " Assump- 
 tion of the Virgin," and had rambled off on a 
 quest of her own after the pastel portraits of 
 Rosalba Camera. 
 
 Tib sat silently turning the leaves of her 
 guide-book, and Angelo Zanelli noticed with 
 displeasure that she did not look at the great 
 painting. He could not understand such ob- 
 tuseness or was it perversity ? She must have 
 heard of it. Had she no interest, no curios- 
 ity even in this, one of the world's master- 
 pieces ? Finally she looked up, and her atten- 
 tion became instantly fixed. He watched her 
 furtively until she came out of her day- 
 dream, then he braced himself for a shock,
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 141 
 
 and it came, but not in the way that he had ex- 
 pected. 
 
 "It is such a foolish thing," she said, " to 
 dread being disappointed, not to dare to know 
 the real truth about any person or thing. 
 Don't you think so ?" 
 
 It seemed to Angelo Zanelli that she had read 
 his thought, and he stammered in his embar- 
 rassment that it was often a great pleasure to 
 find one's self mistaken. 
 
 " Is it not ?" Tib replied. " I am so relieved 
 now. I have seen so many paintings that 
 seemed to me overpraised that when we came 
 in I actually did not dare to look at this won- 
 derful picture. As if Titian could disappoint ! 
 I am so ashamed of myself for imagining such 
 a thing!" 
 
 The count was surprised and delighted, but 
 was still far from suspecting that Tib's mind 
 was as highly cultivated and as fully developed 
 as his own ; but he realized that here, at least, 
 was an appreciative nature, capable of the high- 
 est cultivation. Without being priggish or 
 egotistic, he took it for granted that his own 
 abilities and acquirements were superior to hers. 
 He fancied that hitherto she had spent her life
 
 142 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 on the Long Island farm, without opportunities 
 for higher education. He pitied her for this 
 deprivation, and his soul was fired with the 
 generous resolve to enlighten and develop her. 
 He. believed that his motives were purely philan- 
 thropic, and he set about the task at once. He 
 led her to his favorites the paintings of the 
 two Bellinis, in which the Academy is so rich 
 the Madonnas with the Christ Child of the 
 younger and greater brother, Giovanni, attend- 
 ed by saints and angels, among which are some 
 of the most charming child faces ever painted. 
 He explained the pictures with great pains, and 
 was pleased by the deep admiration with which 
 she studied them, but a little piqued by the 
 rather amused look with which she received his 
 somewhat elementary instruction, and by the 
 light curiosity with which she treated the large 
 compositions of the older brother, Gentile 
 those imposing backgrounds of architecture, 
 concourses of people especially " The Proces- 
 sion" and the " Miracle of the Holy Cross." 
 She volunteered the remark that Gentile Bel- 
 lini's and Carpaccio's canvases reminded her 
 of old fashion-plates in their rendering of the 
 costume of their day ; he felt that the com-
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 143 
 
 parison was frivolous, and assured her that they 
 were the most important of records existing 
 concerning the architecture and life of the 
 period which was really not so far from 
 what she had intended to say. She listened 
 politely, as though she had never heard the fact 
 before, to his information that Gentile Bellini 
 was so highly considered that when the Sultan 
 sent for the best painter in Venice to execute 
 his portrait he was given the commission ; and 
 much that he told her of Carpaccio, the connect- 
 ing link between these two earliest Venetian 
 masters and the four great men who followed 
 *-;hem, was indeed new to her. 
 
 Winnie, who had discreetly left them to 
 themselves, reappeared after an hour. Her 
 conscience had reproached her for the part she 
 had played at the outset in so completely lead- 
 ing the count astray in his estimate of her 
 friend, and she determined to give him every 
 opportunity of modifying the opinion which he 
 ha<? formed. She found him deep in his ex- 
 position, and was rather indignant that he had 
 occupied the time in imparting information, in- 
 stead of allowing Tib to reveal anything of her 
 true self. She yawned behind her hand, and
 
 144 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 expressing herself as having had quite enough 
 of pictures for one morning, insisted on return- 
 ing home. 
 
 But the count had only begun to taste the 
 delight of developing an appreciative mind, 
 and he joined them that evening in Professor 
 Waite's studio. It happened that for some 
 time John Nash was the only other guest, and 
 that he suggested that they should resolve 
 themselves into a symposium for the clearing 
 up of their ideas in relation to the painters 
 whose works they were continually meeting, 
 and that Professor Waite should be chairman. 
 
 " Yes," Tib assented. "Give us a general 
 picture of the period, and frame the picture in 
 with its confining dates. Let us know just 
 which names stand for the foreground char- 
 acters and which are only shadowy background 
 adjuncts ; give us the relation of the picture to 
 its neighbors in the other cities of Italy. Then 
 we will select the men that interest us most in 
 the picture, and you can tell us where their 
 best work is to be found, and we can make our 
 pilgrimage with an intelligent purpose." 
 
 She made the request with the kindly im- 
 pulse of backing up John' s real thirst for in-
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 145 
 
 formation, but the count thought it a confes- 
 sion of her own need for instruction, and he re- 
 plied enthusiastically that such a condensation 
 of important facts, a freshening up of knowl- 
 edge which had grown rusty, was just what 
 they all needed. 
 
 " To begin with," Winnie remarked, " I wish 
 you would tell me how to remember dates. I 
 have no end of miscellaneous knowledge, but it 
 is not properly pigeon-holed. Dates were al- 
 ways my bugbv ar in history." 
 
 " The dates of Venetian history are very 
 easily grouped and remembered," the count re- 
 plied. " You have only to iix in your mind 
 that the city was founded in 400 A.D., and that 
 the period of decline began in 1600, after 
 which there is nothing worthy of your study, 
 and the twelve hundred years between those 
 dates divide and subdivide into very convenient 
 periods. For instance, halve the twelve hun- 
 dred, and you will have from 400 to 1000 A.D. 
 six hundred years of quiet growth, and from 1000 
 to 1600 A.D. six hundred years of brilliant achieve- 
 ment. Again halve this latter period, and we 
 find that from 1000 to 1300 A.D. we have three hun- 
 dred years in which the achievements were in
 
 146 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 war, and from 1300 to 1600 A.D. three hundred of 
 triumphs in the arts of peace. Halve this last 
 period of three hundred years, and we find that 
 the first one hundred and fifty years are given 
 to a revival of scholarship ; and the last cen- 
 tury and a half, from 1450 to 1600 A.D., belongs 
 to painting. " 
 
 " That is rather odd," Professor Waite com- 
 mented. " I never saw it stated in just that 
 way ; but, broadly speaking, the generalization 
 is true. The most brilliant period of Venetian 
 art, the period which you wish to study, is 
 framed in just that century and a half, for the 
 Bellinis began to paint in 1450, and Veronese 
 died in 1588, which brings us very close to 1600, 
 and between those dates we have the entire 
 careers of Giorgione, Tintoretto, Titian, and 
 Paul Veronese. It was the Renaissance when 
 all Italy was most productive in men of genius. 
 Have you ever thought that while the entire 
 country was divided into a large number of 
 petty States, only two, Florence and Venice, 
 were republics ? All of the others were petty 
 kingdoms and principalities governed by des- 
 pots. It is a curious fact, too, that none of the 
 other States, nor all of them together, produced
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 147 
 
 such great men nor so many of them as these 
 two republics, and yet life in Florence and in 
 Venice was very different. In Florence, under 
 the Medici, everything was in a state of unrest 
 and upheaval. Savonarola was openly at war 
 with the Pope, new ideas were being discussed, 
 and the Reformation was in the air. In poli- 
 tics, revolution after revolution succeeded each 
 other. Any man might dream of becoming a 
 prince, like Sforza, or a companion of princes, 
 like Petrarch ; and, aided by Lorenzo's mag- 
 nificent patronage, and spurred by the specta- 
 cle of genius all about him, many a man did 
 rise from very humble antecedents to a place of 
 eminence. Everything was in ferment, and 
 change was the order of the day. In Venice, 
 on the contrary, everything was quiet and 
 fixed. Its cautious policy insured the stability 
 of its institutions. Its government had become 
 a close and suspicious oligarchy. Power was 
 confined to those families whose names were in- 
 scribed in the Golden Book. Executive power 
 was gradually restricted to 'fewer hands, and 
 that secrecy was secured which we are told 
 the Venetians regarded as the highest object 
 of government. In the fifteenth century the
 
 148 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Council of Ten was supreme. Perhaps Count 
 Zanelli will explain to us how it happened that 
 while she was a republic only in name, she 
 should have resembled Florence in lifting to 
 the highest eminence men of very plebeian ori- 
 gin, and that the most aristocratic society in 
 Italy should have done honor to the sons of a 
 dyer and a peasant." 
 
 "The answer is a simple one," Angelo re- 
 plied. " Venice at this time resembled a deep 
 and placid lake walled in by the strong sluice- 
 gates of her institutions, and apparently un- 
 ruffled by the tossing tumult of the rapids, the 
 intense current of the mill-race, or the tremen- 
 dous leap of the cataract in the neighboring 
 States. But just as the mill-pond above the 
 dam feels the strong drawing of those silent, 
 unseen undercurrents, which break into foam 
 and clamor below, so Venice under her stately 
 calm was full of the intensity of the impending 
 change from medievalism to modernity, and it 
 was this strong undercurrent which kept the 
 waters of her life pure, and differentiated the 
 living lake from a stagnant tarn. The doge- 
 ship of Foscari was perhaps the most luxurious 
 era that Venice ever witnessed. She had con-
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTF-RS. 149 
 
 quered her pre-eminence and had not yet lost 
 it. The princely living made possible by the 
 accumulation of great wealth in our lordly city 
 is reflected in the sumptuous paintings of that 
 magnificent group of colorists to which the pro- 
 fessor has referred. The banquets of Paul 
 Veronese could only have been painted in a 
 state of society where such lavish hospitality 
 was the rule. But Venice entertained guests not 
 only from every part of Italy, but from every 
 part of the world. She knew what was going 
 on in the cities about her. She discussed the 
 ideas that were agitating Florence. She was 
 broad-minded, ready to accept the new. The 
 Renaissance in literature had already been em- 
 braced by her in architecture ; it was rapidly 
 changing the appearance of the city. In relig- 
 ion and politics the new ideas worked in a 
 more covert way, but the new principle of the 
 brotherhood of man was felt, and when genius 
 appeared it was recognized and honored. But 
 enough of the background ; now kindly tell us, 
 professor, of our four artist heroes, and first of 
 Giorgione." 
 
 " To me Titian is the central figure in the 
 picture," said Professor Waite, " f or he lived
 
 150 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 so long that his life covered the. career of the 
 others, and was the connecting link between 
 them. Giorgione and Titian were fellow-stu- 
 dents in the studio of the Bellinis. The young 
 Tiziano, who had come down from his moun- 
 tain home at Cadore, won to the study of art 
 by the solemn majesty of nature, is thought by 
 his biographers to have been a serious youth, 
 * a steady and patient worker, following all the 
 rules and the discipline of his master, and tak- 
 ing into his capacious brain everything that 
 could be taught him ; whereas young Giorgione 
 was more masterful and impatient, and with a 
 quicker eye and insight (having so much less 
 time to do his work in) seized upon those 
 points in which his genius could have full 
 play.' Giorgione (Big George), or Torzo da 
 Castelfranco, on leaving Bellini's studio, re- 
 turned to Castelfranco, but after executing a 
 few orders, came back to Venice and took a 
 house not far from the Rialto. It is held by 
 some that he and Titian entered into a partner- 
 ship to decorate the exterior of buildings with 
 frescoes they certainly worked together on the 
 Fondaco de Tedeschi, where Tintoretto's wall 
 was the more generally praised. Only a few
 
 TEE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 151 
 
 vestiges of color are left of these paintings, 
 which, like most of the exterior mural paint- 
 ings of Venice, have been destroyed by mois- 
 ture. ' Giorgione ' is said by one authority ' to 
 have originated genre painting. His subjects 
 are always charming, containing nothing base 
 or low, and confined to very simple groups of 
 few figures. He was also famous for his por- 
 traits. He was a great favorite in Venetian so- 
 ciety on account of his fine presence, agreeable 
 manners, and great skill as a musician. His 
 nature was that of a true poet profoundly 
 thoughtful, yet at the same time taking an in- 
 nocent pleasure in life. There are compara- 
 tively few of his paintings left us.' It was 
 Ruskin who assured him the immortality which 
 his works deserve, though Ruskin is not to be 
 trusted in all of his passionate magnificent as- 
 sertions. If you will hand me that unpretend- 
 ing little book I will read you an extract from 
 Karl Karoly, who sums up briefly and: well the 
 life of Jacopo Robusti, called H Tintoretto (The 
 Little Dyer), from his father's business : 
 
 " * He worked for a short time in the studio 
 of Titian ; but not being on good terms with 
 his master, left after ten days. Over the door
 
 152 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 of his studio he is said to have inscribed, as a 
 definition of the style he preferred, " The draw- 
 ing of Michael Angelo and the coloring of 
 Titian." 
 
 " l After some years of struggle and poverty 
 he became famous, and married Faustina, the 
 daughter of Marco di Viscovi, a Venetian 
 nobleman. They lived in a beautiful house in 
 the Calle Larga (No. 3162), which is now called 
 the Palazzo Camello. Tintoretto was of a kind 
 and genial disposition, and something of a wit. 
 He was very generous ; and his wife, who was 
 quite the opposite, would give him when he* 
 went out a small sum of money, and on his re- 
 turn required an account of how he had spent 
 it. Tintoretto was very fond of his daughter 
 Marietta, who worked in his studio dressed as 
 a boy. She became very proficient as a por- 
 trait painter, and received some brilliant offers 
 to go to the courts of Philip II. of Spain and 
 Maximilian, but she refused to leave Venice. 
 She married a German jeweller. To acquire a 
 knowledge of foreshortening, Tintoretto made 
 models in wax, which he hung up in his studio 
 in a variety of positions, and drew them from 
 every point of view. Tintoretto was the most
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 153 
 
 imaginative of all painters. It is only in Yen- 
 ice that lie can properly be studied. In judg- 
 ing of his works, it must be remembered that 
 he worked most rapidly and on a large scale ; 
 that he did not care what the public thought of 
 his works, and only completed them when he 
 felt in the humor to do so ; and that he was the 
 most unequal of all painters. 
 
 " ' In many respects, Tintoretto resembled 
 Michael Angelo, especially in savage originality 
 and energy of will. The feverish energy of his. 
 work acquired for him .the name of the " Furi- 
 oso." Venice is full of the works of Tinto- 
 retto, which are now generally in a bad condi- 
 tion, " foul with the disfigurements of mildew, 
 and all but invisible in the dead blackness 
 which has crept over their splendor." 
 
 "It is but just that this should be ex- 
 plained," said Winnie, "for both Tib and I 
 were greatly disappointed with the Scuola di 
 San Rocco, which Ruskin calls one of the three 
 most precious buildings in Italy, on account of 
 the sixty-two paintings by Tintoretto with 
 which it is decorated (the other two being the 
 Sistine Chapel and the Campo Santo of Pisa). 
 We were distressed at first at our own lack of
 
 154 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 appreciation until we found that Ruskin him- 
 self admits that they were all painted for their 
 badly lighted positions, and are for the most 
 part nothing more than vast sketches made to 
 produce, under a certain degree of shadow, the 
 effect of finished pictures. Some are really fin- 
 ished, while others ' seem to have been painted 
 in a couple of hours with a broom for a brush. ' 
 He describes the series in detail in his * Stones 
 of Venice' all but 'The Crucifixion,' and of 
 this he says simply, ' I must leave this picture 
 to work its will on the spectator ; for it is be- 
 yond all analysis and above all praise. ' ' 
 
 " We studied the ' Paradise,' too, in the 
 Ducal Palace, " said Tib, "very carefully with 
 an opera-glass ; but until Professor Waite ex- 
 plained the picture we could make nothing of 
 it, and we were much consoled when we found 
 that Taine said that all he could make out * was 
 a mass of figures whirling in a reddish light, 
 which seemed that of a conflagration.' 
 
 " Walter Thornbury, in his poem on Tintoretto 
 painting his dead daughter, makes the artist 
 allude to his rivalry with Titian in these words : 
 
 " ' That Titian's still before me in the race ; 
 
 The harpies snatch this angel from my side,
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 155 
 
 And leave his proud-eyed girl with lavish hair 
 And great white shoulders, to enhance his pride, 
 
 And serve round sweetmeats to the senators, 
 Who flock to him by dozens, to hand down 
 
 To ages heedless of the boon, each vacant face, 
 Steeped in one dull dark fog of golden brown. 
 
 " ' He fills the churches, palaces, and halls, 
 
 'Tis he who sweeps the ducats to his lap, 
 He paints the emperors, cardinals, and popes ; 
 To him the meanest boatman doffs his cap. 
 
 " ' Yet we shall meet in Paradise, and there 
 
 She'll smile to see St. Luke my withered hand 
 Grasp at the golden gate, while Titian takes 
 The lower seat. I have him on the hip. ' 
 
 You may call me lacking in appreciation of the 
 more heroic qualities, but to me Titian is the great- 
 est painter of them all. His career is so wonder- 
 ful, when one thinks that at thirty-five he was 
 without a rival throughout all Europe, and the 
 record of his work is simply incredible, even 
 when we take into consideration the fact that 
 he painted until his ninety -ninth year. All the 
 great galleries of Europe appear to possess 
 numerous examples of his works and what a 
 variety of subjects ! sacred and profane his- 
 tory, mythological legends, landscapes and por-
 
 156 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 traits and to me these are best of all and 
 how many he painted ! Nearly every great 
 potentate of Europe of the sixteenth century 
 ordered his portrait of Titian Charles V. sev- 
 eral times ; Philip II. ; Francis I. of France ; 
 the Sultan Solyman ; Popes Clement VII. , Paul 
 III., and Paul IV. ; all the doges of his time ; 
 the Dukes of Urbino and Alba ; the Constable 
 de Bourbon ; Andrea Doria, of Genoa ; Caesar 
 Borgia ; Count Castiglione ; Cardinals Ippolito 
 de Medici, Bembo, Sforza, and Farnese ; Ari- 
 osto ; Tasso ; Sansovino, and many others a 
 complete historical gallery illustrating the time 
 in which he lived, and all of them master- 
 pieces. I admire him even more as a delinea- 
 tor of character than as a master of color. I 
 think Ruskin does him justice for once when 
 he says that beside the senatorial dignity of 
 his old Venetian nobles all our modern gentle- 
 men look poor and small, and I wonder if 
 women were so much more beautiful in his 
 day, so much happier than they are now, as 
 they appear to be in his joyous paintings ? 
 What do you think, Count Zanelli ? ." 
 
 Angelo Zanelli had been following Tib in- 
 tently as she spoke rapidly and enthusiast!-
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 157 
 
 cally. It was a revelation, and he could scarce- 
 ly credit that this girl, upon whom he had 
 looked down so patronizingly, could not only 
 talk so well, but actually knew of what she was 
 talking. But her direct question turned the 
 current of his thought. 
 
 " We have one ancestral portrait, said to 
 have been painted by Titian," he replied, 
 " though it is not signed. It hangs between 
 those windows ; you can judge whether a man 
 .of my race might really have looked like that." 
 
 They all turned to the portrait in question 
 that of a very noble-looking man, past the 
 prime of life, gowned in black, with sunken 
 eyes and an emaciated, scholarly face. 
 
 " I do not think that Titian added any flat- 
 tering touch of his own to that face," said Ade- 
 laide ; " it is such a one as yours will become 
 when you are old." 
 
 The count laughed in a forced way. " You 
 have paid me no compliment," he said. " Do 
 not repeat it to my mother ; but there are un- 
 canny tales told of that benevolent-looking indi- 
 vidual ; that he was an alchemist and worse, 
 and that the motto on the scroll, ' I die that 
 others may live,' was true, but in no good
 
 158 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 sense. He died as a serpent dies, crasheu 
 in order that he might injure no more by his 
 nefarious arts. It is ^a noble ancestry that I 
 boast, is it not ?" 
 
 He seemed so excited that Professor Waite 
 hastened to bring the conversation back to safe 
 and impersonal ground. " Titian was always 
 a gentleman," he said ; "he had received a 
 learned education, and had polished manners. 
 His wife, Cecilia, died in 1530, and his sister, 
 Orsa, came from his birthplace, the mountain 
 town of Cadore, to live with him in the house 
 you visited. It was then a fashionable part 
 of Venice, and Titian lived very luxurious- 
 ly, entertaining much. He had three chil- 
 dren Pomponio, who was such a wild youth, 
 even after he became a priest, that his father 
 would not allow him to accept a bishopric 
 which was offered him, as he was certain 
 that he would disgrace it ; Orazio, who was a 
 scholar and an inventor (it is said an alchemist, 
 too ; so your ancestor had good company, 
 count) ; and a much-loved daughter, Lavinia, 
 whom he painted bearing a great dish of fruit, 
 the product probably of his garden. He loved 
 to deck her with jewels, and bought an organ
 
 TEE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 159 
 
 for her use. She married a gentleman of the 
 Cadore country, and went back to live among 
 the mountains, where her father frequently 
 visited her. Among the noble guests whom he 
 entertained was the Emperor Charles V. It is 
 possible that Caesar Borgia had his portrait in 
 that very house, for he was in Venice for a 
 short time with his three hundred horsemen, 
 and the discourteous guests stole even the 
 hangings of their beds when they left. It is 
 said that Caesar himself stole an altar cloth 
 which he fancied. I have here a curious let- 
 ter from one of Titian's guests the scholar 
 Priscianese who, writing back to Rome, de- 
 scribes a dinner at Titian's house. It is such a 
 good picture that I will read it : 
 
 " ' I was invited on the 1st of August to cele- 
 brate a feast in the delightful garden of Messer 
 Tiziano Yecelli, a most excellent painter and a 
 person truly adapted to season with courtesies 
 any distinguished entertainment. There were 
 assembled with the said Messer Tiziano as like 
 desires like some of the rarest geniuses which 
 are found at present in this city, principally 
 Messer Pietro Aretino, a new miracle of na- 
 ture, and next to him II Sansovino, almost as
 
 160 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 great an imitator of nature with the chisel as 
 was the master of the feast with the pencil ; 
 also Messer Jacopo Nardi and myself, so that 
 I made the fourth among such wisdom. Here, 
 before they set out the tables for although the 
 place was shady the sun still made his strength 
 felt the time was passed in contemplation of 
 the lifelike figures in the excellent paintings 
 of which the house was full, and in discussing 
 the beauty and charm of the garden, which was 
 a pleasure and a wonder to every one. 
 
 " ' It is situated in the extreme part of Yen- 
 ice, upon the sea, and from it may be seen the 
 pretty island of Murano and other beautiful 
 places. This part of the sea, as soon as the sun 
 went down, was filled with a. thousand little 
 gondolas adorned with beautiful women, and 
 resounded with divers harmonies, the music of 
 voices and instruments, which till midnight ac- 
 companied our delightful supper. In the mean 
 while came the hour for supper, which was no 
 less beautiful and well arranged than plentifully 
 provided. Besides the most delicate viands 
 and precious wines, there were all those pleas- 
 ures and amusements that were appropriate to 
 the season, the guests, and the feast. Having
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 161 
 
 just arrived at the fruit, your letter came. 
 Finally the supper ended most pleasantly. ' 
 
 " Many another supper ended in the same 
 way at that hospitable house ; but at length 
 the plague came again to Venice, and the great 
 artist died there quite alone. Sister Orsa was 
 dead, Lavinia away in her mountain home, 
 Pomponio careless, and Orazio lay dying at the 
 same time at the public pest-house. It is said 
 that robbers broke in and sacked the house 
 before his dying eyes ; but that is hardly cred- 
 ible, for no hope of plunder could have induced 
 even a brigand to enter a plague-infected house." 
 
 " It seems as if Byron must have been think- 
 ing of Titian's house and garden," said Win- 
 nie, " when he wrote : 
 
 " ' In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 
 And silent rows the songless gondolier. 
 
 Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, 
 Those days are gone, but beauty still is here : 
 
 States fall and fade, but Nature doth not die, 
 Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 
 
 The pleasant place of all festivity, 
 
 The revel of the earth, the mosque of Italy.' " 
 
 " Oh, no !" Tib exclaimed. " I am sure that 
 was suggested by Paul Veronese's great ban-
 
 162 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 quet scenes, as well as this description of Ven- 
 ice : 
 
 " ' She looks a sea Cybele fresh from ocean, 
 
 Rising -with her tiara of proud towers 
 At airy distance with majestic motion, 
 
 A ruler of the waters and their powers. 
 
 And such she was ; her daughters had their dowers 
 From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 
 
 Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. 
 In purple was she robed, and at her feasts 
 Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.' " 
 
 "It is very possible," said Professor Waite, 
 who had been consulting several books and had 
 marked some passages. " ' Paolo was the son 
 of Gabriele Caliari, an obscure sculptor, and was 
 born at Verona ; hence his appellation Veronese. 
 
 " ' He went to Venice about 1555. When he 
 arrived he was already an accomplished artist, 
 but he learned much from Titian, who held him 
 in high esteem. He was for a time in Rome 
 with the Venetian ambassador Grimani ; and it 
 was on his return to Venice that his brilliant 
 career began. Veronese was a man of amiable 
 manners, of a liberal, generous spirit, and ex- 
 tremely pious.' 
 
 " Of the many descriptions of Veronese's 
 * Fame of Venice, ' or ' Venice Enthroned ' (on
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 163 
 
 the ceiling near the * Paradise ') Taine's is the 
 best : 
 
 " ' Amid grand architectural forms of balco- 
 nies and spiral columns sits Venice, the blonde, 
 on a throne radiant with beauty, a queen whose 
 mere rank gives the right to be happy, and 
 whose only desire is to render those who see 
 her happy also. On her serene head, which is 
 thrown slightly backward, two angels place a 
 crown. Beneath, on a balustrade, are Venetian 
 ladies in the costume of the time in low-neck 
 dresses, cut square and closely fitting the body. 
 It is actual society, and is as seductive as the 
 goddess. There is not one who is not merely 
 cheerful but joyous. 
 
 " It is of this painting that a poet writes : 
 
 " ' How didst thou once, Venetia, gorgeously 
 Flaunt like a haughty queen in gold array, 
 As Paolo Veronese painted thee 1 ' 
 
 r ' : His canvases are nearly always large, and 
 his subjects incidents which admit of being ren- 
 dered with pomp and magnificence. He loved 
 to depict scenes of costly splendor, to which he 
 gave scriptural names, but which were in real- 
 ity Venetian life of the day. He painted all
 
 164 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 subjects, even the most solemn, in the same 
 gorgeous style. He was precisely the painter 
 suited to a nation of successful merchants. 
 His coloring differs from that of his great rivals 
 in its silvery transparency. He died in 1588, 
 and was buried in the Church of San Sebastiano. ' 
 
 " Sir Joshua Reynolds justly characterized 
 the mode of composition and execution peculiar 
 to the Venetians as the decorative style. This 
 involves a strange luxury of arcades, porticos, 
 balconies, and staircases, and of rich silks and 
 draperies, which was somewhat detrimental to 
 the ideality of the subject. 
 
 " This completes our brief survey of the 
 great quartette. It has certainly been a good 
 idea to fix them distinctly in our minds while 
 we are studying their works. It is only a 
 superficial glance ; but if we supplement it 
 with more earnest study our time has not been 
 lost." 
 
 " I could have said that myself to you an 
 hour ago with the same professorial dignity 
 and condescension," said Angelo Zanelli to 
 Tib ; ' ' but I see now that you have really given 
 the subject very earnest study already, and I 
 beg your pardon for presuming hitherto to take
 
 THE VENETIAN PAINTERS. 165 
 
 the tone of a tutor. You must have been 
 laughing at my ridiculous airs. I descend 
 from the rostrum. After this, as in the old 
 days, when you were Nellie Zanelli and I was 
 Lolo, when I want instruction about Venice I 
 will come to you." 
 
 " You are wrong in thinking that I have 
 been laughing at you," Tib began ; but Winnie 
 interrupted her. 
 
 " Indeed we have, though. It was such fun 
 to take you in that first night here, when you 
 imagined us two giddy, rattle-pated girls." 
 
 " So that was a little play acted for my bene- 
 fit ?' ' he asked. 
 
 " Yes ; and we had begun to feel that we 
 had acted it too well, and to wonder how we 
 should ever gain your good opinion. " 
 
 It was Tib who spoke ; and the count replied : 
 
 " Teach me ho\v to gain yours. Density such 
 as mine has been ought not to be pardoned too 
 easily, and should have a long penance and a 
 hard one." 
 
 " Your penance shall be to continue your 
 kind instruction, and believe me, Winnie and I 
 are most grateful for this delightful introduc- 
 tion to Venice."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 A FESTA. 
 
 OUNT ANGELO'S pen- 
 ance, though it did not 
 seem hard, was certainly a 
 long one. The mornings 
 were still sacred to work, 
 but every afternoon he 
 devoted to showing the 
 girls some new part of 
 Venice. Now it was 
 some masterpiece of 
 one of the great paint- 
 ers, hidden away in an obscure church one 
 afternoon Tintoretto's in the' Church of the 
 Madonna dell' Orto and in the morning he 
 evn wilily suggested that he could guide 
 them to out-of-the-way spots for their sketch- 
 ing, to Tintoretto's house with the carved 
 camel over the window, to some cloistered 
 court with a carved stone well-curb in the
 
 A FESTA. 167 
 
 centre, or to a staircase with exquisite balus- 
 trades, to one of the canopied Madonnas, or 
 to the Giudecca with its fishing-boats and the 
 distant spires reflected in the lagoon. 
 
 And though with each pilgrimage he obtained 
 new insight into their character, and compre- 
 hended how little they needed his tutorship, 
 still he did not cease his friendly ministrations, 
 though his conversation became less didactic 
 and lost every vestige of patronage, and the 
 "mad pride of intellectuality." There was 
 not much chat of any kind during these days. 
 They simply stood silently together before the 
 great paintings, seeming to know by intuition 
 what the other thought about them, while 
 Winnie filled their silences with her lightsome 
 chatter. 
 
 Were there ever such beautiful days as those 
 which came with the early spring ? The gray, 
 sodden clouds, which had often settled during 
 the winter into dismal rain, rolled away in 
 great billowing masses and crowned the Alps 
 on the northern horizon, piling themselves in 
 mimic mountain ranges above the real ones, 
 leaving the dome of heaven a clear crystalline 
 blue. They were in their gondolas all day long,
 
 168 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 and in the clear, starlit nights, when the canals 
 were all aglow with twinkling lights and sway- 
 ing, many- colored lanterns, they followed in 
 the wake of the serenading barges, listening to 
 and joining in the songs. 
 
 The Church of the Salute had always charmed 
 Tib as she watched it from their balcony, and 
 Angel o was especially fond of it. They could 
 both say, with Hopkinson Smith : 
 
 " This beautiful church is always my rendez- 
 vous. It is half-way to everything to the 
 Public Garden ; across the Giudecca ; away 
 over to the Lagoon, where the fishermen live ; 
 to the Bialto and beyond. In the freshness of 
 the morning, when its lovely dome throws a 
 cool shadow across its piazza, there is no better 
 place for a painter to make up his mind where 
 he would work." 
 
 The count claimed the privilege of showing 
 the church to the girls on the occasion of the 
 great annual festival. They walked across the 
 bridge of boats which was thrown across the 
 Grand Canal. 
 
 " Salute means health, does it not ?" Tib 
 asked, looking up at the beautiful building. 
 
 " Yes," the count replied ; " the convent was
 
 - A FESTA. 169 
 
 built by the city of Venice on ground formerly 
 belonging to the Knights Templars as a votive 
 offering on the cessation of the last visit of the 
 plague." 
 
 " How many times has the city suffered from 
 that scourge ?' ' 
 
 " Seventy. It is the price we pay for our 
 close intercourse with the East. She shares 
 with us her curses as well as her treasures. 
 The first Crusaders brought it back with their 
 spoils. There is hardly a Venetian family but 
 has among its annals some tradition of tragedy 
 connected with its ravages. Titian, painting 
 grandly in his hundredth year, could not die 
 until the plague struck him. - Giorgione, they 
 say, took it from the lips of his lady love. 
 Strange to say, our own family has been spared, 
 when, if tradition speaks the truth, we should 
 have felt its heaviest fury." 
 
 His face was so dark that Tib did not ask 
 him what he meant. They passed into the 
 church and quietly watched the ceremony of 
 lighting the tapers. Each pilgrim handed a 
 wax candle to the attendant, who lighted it 
 and placed it on the altar, until gradually the 
 dusky place was all aglow.
 
 170 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Angelo handed a taper to the attendant and 
 looked at Tib questioningly. " I suppose that 
 seems to you like idolatry," he said. 
 
 "No," she replied. "I was thinking of a 
 poem I have always loved : 
 
 " ' Now the stars are lit in heaven 
 
 We must light our lamps on earth. 
 Every star a signal given 
 
 From the God of our new birth, 
 Every lamp an answer faint, 
 Like the prayer of mortal saint.' ' 
 
 " Thank you," he said simply. " Let us go 
 before it is dark into the larger sacristy and 
 see Tintoretto's painting of ' The Marriage at 
 Cana.' " 
 
 This subject was a favorite of Paul Vero- 
 nese's, and the girls well remembered his two 
 large paintings in the Louvre, "The Marriage 
 at Cana" and the " Feast at the House of Simon 
 the Leper," and Tib recalled the pictures to 
 their guide. " It. seems to me," she said, 
 " with all due deference to your favorite mas- 
 ter Tintoretto, that he can hardly have sur- 
 passed Veronese in this subject, for here Vero- 
 nese iss on his own ground luxury of appoint- 
 ment, the physical enjoyment of the guests
 
 A FESTA. 171 
 
 sumptuous robes, fair women, and a general air 
 of state, and the pride of position. If I remem- 
 ber rightly, there were a hundred and thirty 
 figures in ' The Marriage at Ca'na,' and yet 
 there was no effect of crowding. There was 
 room and to spare at that great banquet, where 
 the table groaned with gold, and each guest 
 was served as a king." 
 
 " This picture of Tintoretto's is very differ- 
 ently treated," Zanelli replied. " Ruskin says 
 it is perhaps the most perfect example which 
 human art has produced of the utmost possible 
 force and sharpness of shadow united with rich- 
 ness of local color color as rich as Titian's, 
 with light and shade as forcible as Rem- 
 brandt's. These are painter qualities rather 
 than pictorial ones, though the picture does 
 tell its story. See that woman in the fore- 
 ground, stretching her cap across the table to 
 show the wine in it to the astonished men op- 
 posite her ? Ruskin thinks that the fourth of 
 the female figures, counting from the Madonna, 
 is intended for the bride, and that her face is 
 the most beautiful that Tintoretto ever painted, 
 with the exception of the Madonna in the 
 ' Flight into Egypt.'"
 
 172 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 They studied the painting until the darkness 
 came, and then they took a gondola at the 
 church steps, and were rowed up the canal a lit- 
 tle distance to watch the fresco or out-of-door 
 celebration of the fete. 
 
 " It was far more gorgeous in the old days,' ' 
 Angelo explained. " Immense sums were 
 expended by the city on regattas and illu- 
 minations, and there was much rivalry between 
 the two factions of the gondoliers, the blacks 
 and the reds, -while private individuals brought 
 out their gala gondolas, gilded barges adorned 
 with carvings and brocades, and manned by 
 crews in beautiful and fantastic costumes." 
 
 The fresco this evening was a comparatively 
 simple affair, consisting of fireworks on the 
 Rialto. Several bouquets of rockets were sent 
 up from the centre of the bridge, and then from 
 under it a barge of light flashed into the middle 
 of the stream. The barge was towed by a tug, 
 which glided on so far in advance that it seemed 
 to be moving of its own will. Four tall masts, 
 from which fluttered huge gonfalons, shot up 
 as though by magic as the barge emerged from 
 the arch, while in the centre of the boat a 
 magical palm-tree opened like a huge umbrella.
 
 A FE8TA. 173 
 
 Each of its hundreds of pendulous fronds was 
 tipped with an electrical light, and the en- 
 tire mechanism covered the musicians, who sat 
 beneath, as with a canopy of blazing jewels. 
 Their gondolier dexterously eluded the other 
 small craft that were lying in wait for the first 
 place, and followed in the wake next to the 
 musicians' barge. 
 
 "How enchanting it all is !" Tib exclaimed. 
 " Some one has described such a festa as this in 
 a little poem, part of which I can remember : 
 
 " ' With music from their windows booming 
 Floats the voice of masque and measure, 
 Through distant domes and marble piles, 
 
 And hymns the jubilee of youth and pleasure. 
 
 " ' Between the ripple dimly plashing, 
 
 And the dark roof looming high, 
 
 Lost in the funereal sky, 
 Like many -colored jewels flashing, 
 Small lamps in loops and rosaries of fire, 
 Verdant and blood-red, trembling and turning, 
 Yellow, blue, in the deep water burning, 
 From dark till dawning 
 Set all aglow the wide concave, 
 And splash and stain the marble and the nave.' 
 
 ' ' And high above the hum 
 
 Swelled the thunder and the hoot 
 Of the oboe and of viol, of the hautboy and the flute, 
 And the roaring of the drum.' "
 
 174 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 With what zest the musicians sang that 
 night ! All the old favorites" Bella Napoli," 
 " Funicoli, funicola,'' " Margherita" and " Santa 
 Lucia," and later Gordigiani's " Santissima 
 Yergine." 
 
 The barge made its way ponderously down 
 the canal. Beside the musicians they could see 
 a gentleman richly dressed in the costume of 
 the sixteenth century. He wore a mask, so 
 that they could not guess at his identity ; but 
 he gave directions to the singers from time to 
 time, and they evidently sang as he requested. 
 
 " It is some wealthy young fellow," said the 
 count, " bound on a serenading expedition. 
 You will see that he has subsidized the captain 
 of the steamer, and he will stop where this 
 young prince directs and serenade some lady." 
 
 The event proved that the count had guessed 
 correctly, for as they approached one of the 
 stately palaces the masked gentleman called 
 sharply, " Scidr /" (" Stop !") and the steamer 
 came to a halt. The barge drifted forward 
 slowly, and the gentleman snatched a guitar 
 from one 01 the musicians, and himself sang, 
 " jMargherita," the singers joining in the re- 
 frain. The curtains of a window opening upon
 
 A FESTA. 175 
 
 the balcony fluttered apart, a beautiful face 
 peeped out, and a hand threw a bunch of white 
 flowers far out into the stream not quite far 
 enough, however, for the masked singer to 
 catch. The flowers fell into the water at a 
 little distance from the barge, and all in silk, 
 and velvet as he was, the serenader sprang into 
 the canal and waved the bouquet over his head 
 with one hand while he caught at the rope flung 
 him from the barge with the other. 
 
 "Daisies!" exclaimed Tib. "The lady's 
 name must be Margaret. What devotion !" 
 
 Angelo's lip curled. " What a fool !" he 
 said. 
 
 " Perhaps so, to spoil his gay suit, unless the 
 sly rogue knows that the lady's admiration is 
 worth more to him than the price of his 
 doublet. And even if you think the leap 
 theatrical, the custom of serenading is a pretty 
 one. We are too practical for it in America, 
 and our young men are too afraid of appearing 
 ridiculous." 
 
 " It is ridiculous," said Angelo. " I cannot 
 imagine myself being so infatuated as to make 
 such a fool of myself.' ' 
 
 "That is because," said Tib, "you have
 
 176 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 never met any one whom you loved more than 
 you do your own dignity." 
 
 The count made no reply ; and Tib asked, 
 " What is the meaning of those cries which the 
 gondoliers utter from time to time ? ' Scidr ' is 
 one of them." 
 
 " ' Scidr ' means l halt,' " Angelo replied ; 
 " c stall ^ ' look out ; I am coming ; ' ' premej 
 1 1 shall pass you.' : 
 
 " I shall always remember this festa of the 
 Salute," he said, after a pause. "I love the 
 church ; it is one of the noblest examples of 
 that style which Ruskin most unjustly despised 
 the Renaissance. I have a little poem which 
 came to me in a mysterious way, which likens 
 it to some mountain. Here it is in my pocket : 
 
 " ' Like some Greek temple pure and grave, 
 With pediment and architrave ' 
 
 No, I see the author likens the mountain to a 
 Greek temple ; but some way I remembered it 
 as the Salute." 
 
 Tib and Winnie looked conscious, and the 
 count held the envelope on which the poem had 
 been written close to the gondola lamp and read 
 the address on the reverse 4 ' Winifred De
 
 A FE8TA. 17? 
 
 Witt. " " Why, you wrote this !" he exclaimed, 
 much surprised. 
 
 " No,' ' Winnie replied ; " Tib scribbled it one 
 morning on that scrap of paper and then lost 
 it." 
 
 " And you never wondered what had become 
 of it?" 
 
 11 Certainly not," Tib replied. " It was not 
 of enough consequence. I am glad, however, 
 if it suggested the Salute to you, for it was the 
 view from the balcony which called up the 
 protest to Ruskin's assertion that classical 
 architecture was not poetic. " 
 
 The count was silent. He did not even ex- 
 press -the admiration he felt for the little poem, 
 for the new insight he was constantly gaining 
 into Tib's capabilities was most disturbing to 
 his preconceived ideas. 
 
 They had reached their own landing ; but the 
 count begged them to continue the trip, and 
 Winnie ran in to see if Adelaide- would join 
 them. She was gone a long time, and the con- 
 versation drifted to their old child-life, and Count 
 Angelo asked : " May I call you by your beauti- 
 ful real name, Signorita Nellie ? I have main- 
 tained my boyish prejudice for your family
 
 178 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 name. I confess I do not like the name Smith, 
 though it is a very favorite one with your coun- 
 trymen. It is so hard for me to pronounce, 
 and the little short name by which your friends 
 call you I could not presume to use, and, indeed, 
 I like it no better ; but the Signorita Nellie fits 
 you as the word lily suits the flower. It is 
 perfect." 
 
 Angelo was not quite frank when he said this. 
 Even the Signorita Nellie was not quite the 
 name which he would have chosen. The old 
 name which he had given her in the presump- 
 tion of his childish ignorance Nellie Zanelli 
 that to his mind was the only perfect name for 
 her ; but that, he had told himself, he could 
 never ask her to bear. The name had been too 
 deeply disgraced by the crimes of his wicked 
 ancestor, who had brought death to Venice and 
 shame to his descendants, for him to ask any 
 good woman to share its heritage. And yet 
 all this seemed so far away in the past. Must 
 generation after generation of innocent de- 
 scendants suffer for his sin ? The face beside 
 him was so sweet, so noble, the power that com- 
 pelled him so subtle and irresistible, that a wild, 
 reckless determination filled his heart. He
 
 A FESTA. 179 
 
 would be uound. no longer by a dead past, out 
 would put it out of his thoughts and declare 
 himself a free man. Her answer should decide 
 whether he would tell her of his love. 
 
 Tib could not guess the subject over which 
 he was brooding, but she replied frankly : " We 
 are certainly too good friends to be formal. I 
 have in my trunk the little boribonniere which 
 you gave me so long ago. Do you remember^ 
 you erased the first syllable of your name on. 
 the lid that it might read Nelli ?" 
 
 Tib did not look up, and did not see the look 
 of despair .which settled on Angelo's face. 
 Here was his answer indeed. His ancestor's 
 crimes leaped from the past to confront him 
 just as his declaration was trembling on his 
 lips. 
 
 " Nellie !" he exclaimed, " no one has tast- 
 ed those bonbons \ You are sure of it 1" 
 
 " Quite sure. You told me they were prob- 
 ably medicine, and might be poisonous. You 
 were very cautious even as a little boy." 
 
 "Thank God!" he replied earnestly. "I 
 will tell youI have much to tell you, Nellie, 
 much that is very vitally important to me " 
 
 But Winnie, who had obligingly delayed a
 
 180 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 long time, now brought down word that neither 
 Adelaide nor she cared for the gondola trip that 
 evening, and Tib accordingly bade the count 
 good -night and entered the house with Winnie. 
 
 " But when can I tell you V ' Angelo asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 "To-morrow morning on the balcony," Tib 
 replied ; and Winnie could not forbear pinch- 
 ing her arm as they mounted the stairs to- 
 gether. " Ah ! ha !" she teased, " there is 
 something to be told, and we make appoint- 
 ments on the balcony. I must be there to 
 chaperone you, my dear." 
 
 " I shall be very glad of your company,'' Tib 
 replied ; but there was a demure smile about 
 the corners of her mouth which made Winnie 
 sceptical. " I have just come across a pretty 
 poem on serenading in Venice," she said, and 
 she read it aloud to Tib as the latter combed 
 her long hair. 
 
 " When along the light ripple the far serenade 
 Has accosted the ear of each passionate maid, 
 She may open the window that looks on the stream, 
 She may smile on her pillow and blend it in dream ; 
 Half in words, half in music it pierces the gloom. 
 4 1 am coming, stali, but you know not for whom, 
 Stali, not for whom 1 '
 
 A FESTA. 181 
 
 ' Now the tones become cleare'r, you hear more and more 
 How the water divided returns on the oar. 
 Does the prow of the gondola strike on the stair ? 
 Do the voices and instruments pause and prepare ? 
 Oh ! they faint on the ear as the lamp on the view, 
 ' I am passing, preme, but I stay not for you ! 
 Prem'e, not for you ! ' 
 
 " Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear, 
 Then awake not, fair sleeper, believe he is here ; 
 For the young and the loving no sorrow endures, 
 If to-day be another's, to-morrow is yours ! 
 May the next time you listen your fancy be true, 
 ' I am coming, scidr, and for you and to you, 
 ScMr. aud to you !' " 
 
 As Winnie ceased reading, the sound of dis- 
 tant music drifted in at the open window. It 
 was the barge returning. It would have been 
 so easy for the count to have waylaid it and 
 made the musicians serenade them. It seemed 
 to Winnie that, after what had been said, if he 
 really cared to give Tib pleasure this idea would 
 have occurred to him ; and throwing her arm 
 around Tib, she drew her to the window. But 
 the man at the helm of the little steamer shout- 
 ed "preme /" to the gondoliers in front of the 
 palace, and the barge, with its gay lights and 
 music, had passed on.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 VIOLANTE TWO ON A BALCONY. 
 
 ATE hours were the excep- 
 tion for Tib and Winnie, 
 and it was not surpris- 
 ing that they overslept 
 the next morning, and 
 . were only awakened by 
 Adelaide knocking at their 
 door and demanding whether 
 they were going with Profes- 
 sor Waite to paint Yiolante 
 in her picturesque home. 
 
 "There!" exclaimed Tib, 
 " I had forgotten all about 
 Violante." 
 
 " So had I," yawned Winnie. " Suppose we 
 do not go." 
 
 " I would not miss her for anything," Tib re- 
 plied, hurrying with her toilet. 
 
 " But how about that appointment on the 
 balcony for a chat with Count Zanelli V '
 
 VIOLANTETWO ON A BALCONY. 183 
 
 " I am sorry, but he will excuse me. I can 
 see him any time, and I want to read the let- 
 ters that Violante promised to show me. I can 
 see Professor Waite putting his sketching kit 
 into the gondola. I haven't even time to write 
 a note of explanation. It is too bad ; but I 
 don't believe Count Angelo will be vexed." 
 
 " No fear of that, for it is too late for me to 
 think of getting ready ; so I will keep your ap- 
 pointment for you and be your letter of apol- 
 ogy." 
 
 " How good of you!" Tib exclaimed grate- 
 fully ; and, with a parting kiss, she was 
 gone. 
 
 " I have missed a chance at painting the best 
 model in Venice,' ' Winnie grumbled to herself ; 
 and indeed it was a privilege to paint from 
 Violante. 
 
 Tib had caught sight of her first on her way 
 to the Church of Santa Maria Formosa, whither 
 she was going to see Palma Vecchio's master- 
 piece, the noble " St. Barbara." Her atten- 
 tion was drawn to the girl simply as a shapely 
 figure, a black shawl draping the head and 
 shoulders and silhouetting the dignified car- 
 riage against the sunny walls as she flitted
 
 184 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 along in front of them like a guiding will-o'- 
 the-wisp. 
 
 " How well she composes !" Winnie had said. 
 " I wish she would stand still and let me sketch 
 her, leaning over the parapet of that bridge, or 
 simply making the blackest black in any one 
 of those shifting street views." 
 
 " I wonder whether her face is as interesting 
 as her figure, " Tib queried ; but she had no op- 
 portunity of judging, for the girl never looked 
 back, and kept ahead of them all the way, glid- 
 ing into the church and losing herself in its 
 gloom. 
 
 Once within, they speedily forgot her in their 
 admiration of the "St. Barbara," the central 
 figure of a large picture painted as a votive 
 offering for the bombardieri or artillerists. 
 Santa Barbara, their guide-book told them, 
 was the patroness of soldiers, who came here 
 to worship at her shrine. It was easy to see 
 how St. Sebastian, who was in the same pic- 
 ture, and looked as though he had served as a 
 target for a corps of crack arquebusiers, might 
 have been adopted as their patron ; but why the 
 gentle Barbara should have been represented 
 with cannon at her feet, a bow in hand, and a
 
 VIOLANTETWO ON A BALCONY. 185 
 
 4 
 
 spiky iron crown on her fair head was quite 
 incomprehensible. The legend of her life ex- 
 plained her attribute a tower with three win- 
 dows. She was the daughter of Diascorus, of 
 Heliopolis, who shut her up in a tower so that 
 she should not attract suitors by her beauty. 
 She was converted by a disciple of Origen, sent 
 to her as a physician. The fact of her conver- 
 sion to Christianity became known to her father 
 when some repairs were being made in her 
 tower, Santa Barbara Wishing three windows, 
 "as a symbol of the Trinity," to be inserted 
 instead of two. 
 
 The girls read the extracts from various 
 authors in praise of this picture and agreed 
 with them all. 
 
 " An almost unique presentation of a hero- 
 woman, standing in calm preparation for mar- 
 tyrdom, with the expression of a mind filled 
 with serious conviction," wrote George Eliot. 
 " Her shape is grandiose and queenly ; her 
 beauty healthy, serene, and plump. The 
 glance, the massive hair, the full neck and 
 throat are all regal ; her hands are those of a 
 queen," say Crowe and Cavalcascelle. Mrs. 
 Jameson gives one of the best descriptions :
 
 186 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " She wears a tunic or robe of a rich warm 
 brown, with a mantle of crimson ; and a white 
 veil is twisted in her diadem among the tresses 
 of her pale golden hair. I never saw a com- 
 bination of color at once so soft, so sober, and 
 so splendid. Cannon are at her feet, and her 
 tower is seen behind. Beneath, in front of the 
 altar, is a marble bas-relief of her martyrdom ; 
 she lies headless on the ground, and fire from 
 heaven destroys the executioners." 
 
 Winnie felt that Yriarte gave the best sum- 
 ming up of all when he wrote : " She has the 
 noble serenity of a saint who is yet a woman." 
 
 " We should have come here at the fete of 
 this church in February, " whispered Winnie ; 
 1 ' it is connected with that pretty legend of the 
 * Brides of Venice,' " and she pointed to the his- 
 torical information in their guide-book that 
 " on the 21st of February, 944, a number of 
 Venetian maidens who had gone to be married 
 at St. Pietro, in Castello, taking with them 
 their dowries, were carried off by a sudden in- 
 road of pirates. They were pursued and van- 
 quished by the Venetians, owing to the brave 
 cabinet-makers of Santa Maria Formosa, who 
 asked as their sole reward that the doge should
 
 VIOLANTE-TWO ON A BALCONY. 187 
 
 visit their church on that anniversary every 
 year. ' But if it rains ? ' said the doge. ' We 
 will give you hats to cover you. ' ' But if I am 
 thirsty ? ' ' We will give you to drink. ' Hence 
 dated the Festa delle Marie, which was always 
 held in this church on February 2d. First 
 twelve and afterward three poor maidens were 
 always dowered here by the city on that day, 
 when the doge always came in state to the 
 church and received from the priests two hats 
 of gilt straw, two flasks of malvasia, and two 
 oranges. " 
 
 Leaving the church, the girls paused at the 
 left of its west front to admire a beautiful 
 Gothic canopy of the fourteenth century over 
 the entrance to a bridge called the Ponte del 
 Paradiso, and then directed Tribolo to take 
 them home, for Professor Waite had invited 
 them to paint in his studio from one of the 
 handsomest of Venetian models who was to 
 pose for him. As Tribolo moored their gondola 
 at the palace door, they saw passing up the 
 staircase the same black- draped figure which 
 had preceded them on their way to the church 5 
 and when they entered the studio she had 
 thrown back her shawl and was taking her place
 
 188 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 on the model's stand. Tib uttered an exclama- 
 tion of surprise. 
 
 " Why, it is St. Barbara herself !" 
 
 The girl smiled, evidently flattered. 
 
 "You see the resemblance then?" said the 
 professor. " I think it rather striking myself, 
 and am making a study of her in the pose of 
 the Barbara. Other artists have done so before 
 me for Violante draws the attention of her 
 patrons to the resemblance if they do not dis- 
 cover it for themselves. She comes of a long 
 line of artists' models, and claims that the 
 model that sat for Pal ma Vecchio's masterpiece 
 was her ancestress. It may be so. .There is no 
 harm in believing it." 
 
 The girl's quick ear had caught the word 
 Palma Yecchio, and she smiled again and said 
 in Italian : " Yiolante, daughter of Palma, my 
 many-times great-grandmother. " 
 
 "What! daughter as well as *nodel ?" Tib 
 asked. 
 
 The girl nodded confidently. " Palma Vec- 
 chic-'s daughter Violante was very beautiful ; 
 her father painted her ; Giorgione, Titian, all 
 the great artists of that time painted her, and 
 whoever painted her loved her ; but she loved
 
 VIOLANTETWO ON A BALCONY. 189 
 
 only Giorgione, and she killed him, for she had 
 the plague and he kissed her, and of that kiss 
 he died. 1 ' 
 
 " There is a tradition to that effect," Profes- 
 sor Waite assented ; " but it is almost too ro- 
 mantic to be true." 
 
 11 It was sad and yet sweet that the two lovers 
 should die together," Tib said. 
 
 "But they did not die at the same time," 
 the girl replied. " Violante recovered ; she 
 was cured by a magician that is, by a Vene- 
 tian physician who was burned as a wizard for 
 it was believed that he cured his patients by 
 the black art at the expense of their souls. A 
 friar who had taken Giorgione' s dying confes- 
 sion had sprinkled him with holy water, and 
 so his soul was safe ; and this man, while pre' 
 tending to be engaged in prayer, watched the 
 physician, and was convinced, from his strange 
 proceedings, that he meant harm and not good 
 to his patient." 
 
 " That illustrious Violante is most famous," 
 said the professor, " not because she may have 
 been Palma's daughter or Giorgione's love, 
 which is hardly possible, but because Titian 
 painted her. There are no such superb physi-
 
 190 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 
 
 cal types among the Venetian ladies of to- 
 day ; perhaps there were few at that time ; at 
 any rate, Titian was fortunate to have found 
 her, and she to have been found by Titian." 
 
 Yiolante seemed a little piqued that Profes- 
 sor Waite should have doubted any part of her 
 family history. " Yes," she replied, " Titian 
 painted her oftenest, for he lived longest. We 
 have a sketch he gave her, and letters many 
 letters from all of those artists. I am not 
 lying ; the young ladies can see for themselves 
 letters from Titian and two very long letters 
 from Titian's son Orazio. We have been offered 
 a great deal of money for them ; but we know 
 better than to sell them. The young ladies can 
 see them, however, if they will come to my 
 poor house." 
 
 "Your house is not a poor one," Professor 
 Waite replied. " I know it very well ; its court 
 is one of the most picturesque places for sketch- 
 ing in Venice. We will all descend upon you 
 next Wednesday." 
 
 And so the appointment was made which Tib 
 was so anxious to keep, and Winnie was left 
 for the interview with Count Angelo. "Just 
 as if," Winnie said to herself, rather crossly,
 
 VIOLANTETWO ON A BALCONY. 191 
 
 "it was of no more consequence and one 
 -requiring less personal attention than an ap- 
 pointment with a dressmaker." 
 
 Winnie was vexed with Tib's apparent in- 
 difference, and because, in all the intercourse 
 between her and Angelo, intimate as it had be- 
 come, there was no hint of love-making. It 
 seemed to her that they were admirably fitted 
 for one another ; and she contrived many little 
 plots to throw them together, giving them beau- 
 tiful opportunities for uninterrupted conversa- 
 tion ; and she raged inwardly when she ascer- 
 tained how poorly they were improved. 
 
 "Was anything so maddening?" she com- 
 plained to Adelaide one afternoon. " Here I 
 made up a fictitious headache and denied my- 
 self the pleasure of a trip to San Giorgio yes- 
 terday on purpose that the count should have 
 Tib all to himself, and what did that provoking 
 girl do 3 Simply insisted that his mother should 
 go with them." 
 
 "Just like her," Adelaide replied; " and 
 last Thursday, when I really had some hopes 
 for Tib was sitting quite alone in the tented 
 divan and the count made his way straight to 
 her the moment he entered the room you
 
 192 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 should have seen how I labored to keep people 
 away from them. I even entertained John Nash 
 for an hour, for the good, stupid fellow was 
 possessed to join them, and I was simply obliged 
 to order Professor Waite to take the contessa 
 out upon the balcony, for each was persistently 
 determined to interrupt the tete-a-tete. It is too 
 vexatious. The recipe for a happy marriage 
 used to be : 'A young woman. A young man. 
 Congenial tastes. Opportunity.' Now, here 
 are all the ingredients ; why don't they fall in 
 love in the good old-fashioned way ?" 
 
 " They are in love," Winnie replied, " only 
 the blessed innocents haven't found it out. 
 They have too many congenial tastes, and are 
 so taken up with discussing them and discover- 
 ing new ones that they haven't time for any- 
 thing else. Somebody ought to enlighten them 
 before those golden hours of opportunity are 
 gone." 
 
 It was with this benevolent intention that 
 Winnie met Angelo on the balcony that morn- 
 ing. She was surprised to see that he looked 
 haggard and unhappy, for he had passed a 
 sleepless night, vainly puzzling over the old 
 papers regarding his ancestor's trial.
 
 VIOLANTETWO ON A BALCONY. 193 
 
 When Tib had referred to the bonbonniere, the 
 conviction had struck him like a blow that he 
 had been letting himself drift all these pleasant 
 days as though he had a right to win her 
 friendship, and had recklessly disregarded the 
 chains by which he was held. It was time for 
 him to tear himself away while he had any will 
 power left. To strengthen his resolve, on bid- 
 ding the girls good-night he went at once to the 
 alchemist's laboratory and plunged into a study 
 of the record of his trial. If Giovanni Zanelli 
 had really committed the crime for which he 
 was convicted, Angelo felt that his punishment 
 was just. He had never studied the evidence 
 closely, fearing that the slight hope which he 
 still cherished of his ancestor's innocence might 
 be crushed forever ; but now he determined to 
 face the truth. 
 
 Only one witness had appeared in behalf of 
 the accused, Orazio Vecelli, the son of Titian, 
 the great painter. Orazio had declared at the 
 peril of his life that he had studied medicine 
 with Dr. Zanelli, and had found him a most 
 humane and honorable man, devoted to the 
 saving of life, and that it was impossible that 
 he could have committed any of the crimes
 
 194 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 with which he was charged. He asserted that 
 the stranger who had come from Constantino- 
 ple, and was supposed to be the Sultan's emis- 
 sary, was a Greek physician named Chryso- 
 larus, who had come to learn Dr. Zanelli's se- 
 cret of treating the plague, and having learned 
 it had fled away in fear of his life on the arrest 
 of his master. That he, Orazio, being too 
 young a pupil, had not learned this secret ; but 
 if Chrysolarus could be found he could dis- 
 close it. 
 
 Orazio's testimony, though well meaning, 
 really proved nothing except that Dr. Zanelli 
 was a man to command the love and respect of 
 those who knew him. Another prominent 
 name had figured in the trial that of Jacopo 
 Sansovino, the architect. He stood boldly forth 
 as the friend of the accused, and labored with 
 all his might, though fruitlessly, to obtain an 
 acquittal. Angelo turned hopelessly from this 
 study. If these dear friends had been unable 
 to prove the innocence of Dr. Zanelli, how 
 could he, at this distance of time, hope to 
 discover any new light ? The fact remained 
 that he had been tried and found guilty, and 
 that in all these years nothing had been dis-
 
 VIOL ANTE -TWO ON A BALCONY. 195 
 
 covered to prove that his sentence had not been 
 just. 
 
 Angelo therefore kept his appointment with 
 Tib weighed down by a feeling of profound de- 
 spair. When Winnie met him and explained 
 that she was the bearer of her friend's apologies 
 he was really grateful. 
 
 " It does not matter at all," he said hastily 
 " that is, you will do quite as well. Did the 
 Signorita Nellie send me a bonbonniere by 
 you 3" 
 
 " No," Winnie replied, much surprised by 
 his evident relief. " What bonbonniere f" 
 
 "It is not of the slightest consequence I 
 mean that is the only thing of any consequence. 
 I hope the Signorita Nellie will return me the 
 bonbonniere. I have particular reasons for 
 wanting it." 
 
 " And is this all you wished to say to Tib at 
 this time 3" 
 
 " Yes, it is all I could have said to her ; but 
 I can a'sk your advice. I can tell you what I 
 am not at liberty to tell her. I love the Sig- 
 norita Nellie." 
 
 " Indeed ! And why, may I ask, can you 
 not tell her so ?"
 
 196 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 11 Because with that declaration I cannot ask 
 her to be my wife." 
 
 Winnie drew herself up proudly. "Then 
 you are quite right in not telling her that you 
 love her. But I do not understand why you 
 cannot ask her to marry you. " 
 
 " No, you cannot understand ; and I am 
 ashamed to tell you. It is a question of ances- 
 try ; it is because I am a Zanelli." 
 
 Winnie's eyes flashed fire. She entirely mis- 
 understood the count. She thought he meant 
 to imply that because he was of noble descent 
 he could not marry a girl without a title. " I 
 always did despise dukes and earls, counts 
 and barons," she said to herself. " Nobility ! 
 pooh ! there is nothing noble about them. I 
 wouldn't change my Van's little finger for the 
 whole crew ; but I did think that Angelo Za- 
 nelli was made of better stuff." 
 
 " I do not share your point of view, Count 
 Zanelli," she replied with fine scorn. " I do 
 not see any difference in your ancestry. So far 
 as I know it, you are both descended from hon- 
 orable people ; and even if you were not, I do 
 not see that your dead-and-gone ancestors, with 
 all their nobility and grandeur, all their pride
 
 VIOLANTE-TWO ON A BALCONY. 197 
 
 and wealth, all of their honors and distinctions, 
 or even their virtues or their sins, have any- 
 thing to do with you two who are living in the 
 actual present. To me ancestry is no more than 
 a tapestry background, just as shadowy and 
 unreal. The vital question is, what you are 
 personally, and no nobility conferred in past 
 ages can make you noble, Count Angelo, if you 
 yourself are little and base, just as you are not 
 responsible for the sins of any of those illus- 
 trious signors." 
 
 Winnie had expected that the count would be 
 crushed by this magnificent speech, and she 
 was much surprised when he seized her hand, 
 exclaiming : " Do you think so ? do you really 
 think so ? Would the Signorita Nellie have 
 spoken as you have done 2" 
 
 " I am sure that the fact that you are the 
 Count Zanelli has never had the slightest bear- 
 ing on her opinion of you." 
 
 " I thank you ! I thank you with all my 
 heart ! You do not know what a weight you 
 have taken from my mind." 
 
 Winnie was more and more mytiified ; it 
 seemed to her that Count Angelo was going 
 insane.
 
 198 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " I confess I do not understand you at all," 
 she said coldly. 
 
 " No," he replied more calmly, " you do not 
 understand the situation ; and perhaps when 
 you do you will not speak as you have done. 
 My inheritance from my ancestors is one of dis- 
 grace. Gladly would I exchange my name and 
 title for that of the meanest peasant of honest 
 lineage. I am descended from a man who was 
 executed here in Venice for his crimes." 
 
 Winnie had not suspected anything of this 
 kind, and the shock staggered her. " Was he 
 really a criminal f she asked. 
 
 "Ah! that I do not know. It seems to me 
 that it was not proved." 
 
 " Then, if I were you, I would leave no stone 
 unturned to clear his memory." 
 
 11 Then you think that the disgrace of being 
 executed is nothing if the sentence were un- 
 just?" 
 
 " How can any one think otherwise ? The 
 disgrace lies in the crime, not in the punish- 
 ment." 
 
 u And if I could prove that my ancestor were 
 really innocent, could I go to the Signorita 
 Nellie and ask her to be the wife of a man de-
 
 7IOLANTETWO ON A BALCONY. 199 
 
 scended from one who died under the hand of 
 the executioner, and whose body was burned 
 by the Church 2" 
 
 " And even if you cannot prove him inno- 
 cent," Winnie cried, " go just the same. I do 
 not take back a word I have said. What does 
 his guilt matter to you ?" 
 
 " Much, " Angel o replied, shaking his head 
 sadly. " If I were the descendant of a leper I 
 would not be free to marry. I would fear that 
 the terrible disease would break out at any 
 time. If I am of a race morally diseased, must 
 I not fear that I too have that moral taint ?" 
 
 " No," Winnie replied ; " I do not believe in 
 heredity to such an extent as that. Taints die 
 out- in time, just as infections cannot last for- 
 ever. It is as little likely that you could feel 
 an impulse to crime as that the plague will re- 
 visit Venice in these modern times, when we 
 understand so much better the laws of life. 
 But, mind you, what I have said in the way of 
 encouragement is only my view of the case so 
 far as you personally are concerned. I know 
 nothing whatever of Tib's feelings in the matter ; 
 and if I knew, should not tell you." 
 
 " And I shall never ask you," Angelo re-
 
 200 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 plied ; " and I shall ask her myself just as soon 
 as I can prove that the name which I shall offer 
 her is an honorable one ; and meantime I trust 
 you to keep my secret." 
 
 Winnie nodded approvingly. " Count An- 
 gelo, you are more really noble than I thought. 
 I shall respect your confidence sacredly, and 
 meantime I wish you Godspeed in your quest." 
 
 When Tib returned at noon she found Win- 
 nie alone upon the balcony. " What did Count 
 Angel o wish?" she asked. "Was he vexed 
 because I did not keep my promise ?' ' 
 
 " Not at all ; he said it was of no conse- 
 quence whatever ; he merely wished to ask 
 you for a certain boribonniere." 
 
 A shade of annoyance crossed Tib's face. " I 
 wonder why he wishes me to return it. He 
 gave it to me when we were children. Did he 
 'rive any reason why he wanted it back ?" 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 " Well, he shall have it ; and I hope, Win- 
 nie, that this little incident relieves your mind 
 of any suspicion that Count Angelo cares for 
 me in the slightest degree, or that there ever 
 could be any romance between us." 
 
 Winnie smiled, but said nothing.
 
 VIOL ANTE TWO ON A BALCONY. 201 
 
 " Are you convinced ? Answer me !" 
 
 " Convinced ! Oh, perfectly." 
 
 " Then stop smiling in that foolish way, and 
 never allude to the subject again. I have had 
 such an interesting day. You really have 
 missed a great deal. There is the sketch that I 
 made of Violante. She is a lace-maker, and 
 here is a pair of cuffs of real Venetian point 
 which I have brought you." 
 
 " You extravagant girl ! Why, they match 
 the collar I bought at Burano." 
 
 " Yes ; that is why 1 was tempted ; and do 
 you know why they match it ? Violante never 
 took her eyes off of that collar when she was pos- 
 ing here the other day. I wondered why she 
 stared at you in that fascinated way. It was 
 the pattern, not your face, that attracted her, 
 and she made the cuffs from memory." 
 
 " And the letters 2" 
 
 " The letters were in old Italian, which I 
 could not read very well ; but I believe they 
 are genuine. There is one from the architect 
 Sansovino and two long ones from Titian's 
 son Orazio, and what is rather singular is that 
 in each the name Zanelli appeared. I wish I 
 knew what Zanelli it was. "
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A RAY OF LIGHT THE RENAISSANCE PALACES. 
 
 HOUGH Angelo had 
 spoken of the possibil- 
 ity of proving the inno- 
 cence of his ancestor, 
 he could see no way of 
 doing so. He consult- 
 ed one of the most ex- 
 pert lawyers in Venice, 
 who agreed to look into 
 the matter thoroughly, 
 and to advise him if 
 there was anything 
 
 which he could do. While he waited for the 
 opinion of this man, Angelo felt that he must 
 occupy himself intensely or that he would go 
 mad ; and he applied himself more unremitting- 
 ly than ever to his work on Venice. Only a 
 few chapters remained to be written, and these 
 were to be devoted to the last great period of
 
 A RAT OF LIGHT. 203 
 
 Venetian architecture, that of the Renaissance. 
 He buried himself in his study and plunged 
 into his work. 
 
 As he arranged the illustrations for the first 
 part of the book, their merit grew upon him 
 not the technical excellence alone the neat- 
 ness of the drawing, the exactness of measure- 
 ment and proportions, betraying an educated 
 eye, while the perfection of line showed a cer- 
 tainty of touch and facility of practice, and 
 also an artistic freedom in the handling, a per- 
 ception in the choice of subject, and a poetic 
 treatment, the gloomy history of certain build- 
 ings being suggested by choice of lighting, so 
 as to bring out their salient characteristics. 
 The artist had silhouetted massive forms darkly 
 against moonlit skies, and had given a touch of 
 tenderness in clinging vines to decayed gran- 
 deur, thus bringing out just the important 
 points and artfully suppressing the inconse- 
 quent and the incongruous. 
 
 " John Nash has more than the mere skill of 
 a good draughtsman," he said to himself ; " he 
 is a poet and a true artist. It is time that his 
 incognito should be given up.' ' And the count 
 wrote as follows :
 
 204 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND : I have respected your 
 desire to remain unknown, not only refraining 
 from endeavoring to penetrate the flimsy dis- 
 guise which you have thrown over your work, 
 but long after you betrayed your secret I have 
 hidden from you the fact that I knew the iden- 
 tity of the artist who furnished me with siich 
 beautiful illustrations. Bat the time has come 
 on both sides for frank confession. Our busi- 
 ness relations demand this. Our publisher in- 
 sists that you shall have the credit for your 
 work, and that the book shall have the prestige 
 of your name. 
 
 "Let us, then, end this pretence of an incog- 
 nito. The last chapters can be completed much 
 more successfully with mutual help. Let us 
 consult each other, visit places of interest to- 
 gether, and advise each other in regard to the 
 incidents and places which it is best to treat. 
 Meet me, therefore, at Professor Waiters studio 
 to-morrow. Until then and always I remain, 
 with the highest admiration for your talent, 
 your obliged friend and servitor, 
 
 "ANGELO ZAISTELLI." 
 The count sealed this letter and sent it di-
 
 A BAT OF LIGHT. 205 
 
 rectly to John Nash, who was stupefied with 
 surprise, but carried it to Professor Waite for 
 explanation. The professor laughed heartily 
 and divulged the secret. ' ' The count is right, ' ' 
 he said ; " the joke has been carried far enough. 
 It is time for an explanation all around. As 
 you see, this letter begins simply ' My dear 
 friend.' I will enclose it in a new envelope ad- 
 dressed to Miss. Smith, and she can imagine 
 that Zanelli has guessed th.6 truth, and we will 
 enjoy the denouement." 
 
 Tib did so understand the letter, and kept the 
 appointment. As the count entered the room 
 he bowed to her with grave courtesy. " I ex- 
 pected to find our friend John Nash here," he 
 said as he looked about the room. 
 
 " Then have I mistaken your appointment ?" 
 Tib asked, unfolding his letter, which the count 
 recognized at once, while an expression of blank 
 astonishment swept over his face. 
 
 "Did you? are you? no, it cannot be," 
 he exclaimed, turning helplessly to Professor 
 Waite, who replied : 
 
 " Acknowledge the joke, Count Zanelli. 
 Miss Smith is the artist of the pen-and-ink 
 drawings which you have admired so heartily."
 
 206 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Angelo stammered his apologies, which Tib 
 accepted graciously, though Winnie mischiev- 
 ously assured him that it would be long before 
 he heard the last of his mistake. Angelo hardly 
 heard Winnie's jibes. He had not intended to 
 allow himself the privilege of Tib's sweet com- 
 panionship until he could ask for a still higher 
 boon ; but tricky Fate had forced it upon him, 
 and he could but accept it. His gondola was 
 waiting at the door for an excursion to which 
 he had intended to invite John Nash. He had 
 brought a number of books which he intended 
 to look over with him, and there was nothing 
 for him to do but to invite Tib's attention to 
 them. 
 
 " I might have guessed," he said, " as they 
 seated themselves at the large table, " that the 
 writer of the lines on Renaissance architecture 
 which I liked so much knew something of it 
 practically." 
 
 " Very little," Tib replied. " I have read 
 Ruskin of course, and I could but feel that his 
 scorn of the style was unjust. And I wish you 
 would tell me why he was so prejudiced.'' 
 
 " Ruskin's aversion to* Renaissance architec- 
 ture," the count explained, "was based on
 
 A EAT OF LIGHT. 207 
 
 what that architecture expresses, and the two 
 elements which he feels most keenly in its spirit 
 are Pride and Infidelity. It is the ' architec- 
 ture which most nearly becomes a science, ' and 
 Ruskin feels that in doing so it becomes less 
 of an art. He asserts too broadly that the 
 one main purpose of the Renaissance artists 
 was to show how much they knew. * All other 
 architectures, ' he declares, ' have something in 
 them that common men can enjoy quaint 
 fancy, rich ornament, bright color, something 
 that shows a sympathy with men of ordinary 
 minds and hearts. But the Renaissance is 
 rigid, cold, inhuman. Whatever excellence it 
 has is refined, high trained, and deeply erudite 
 a kind which the architect well knows no 
 common mind can taste.' He proclaims, ' You 
 cannot feel my work unless you study Vitru- 
 vius. I am a learned man. All the pleasure 
 you can have in anything I do is in its rigid 
 formalism, its perfect finish, its cold tranquil- 
 lity. I do not work for the vulgar, only for the 
 men of the Academy and the court. ' 
 
 " The pride which the Renaissance architec- 
 ture displayed, according to our critic, was not 
 alone the pride of the architect in his science,
 
 208 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 but a baser kind of pride as well, that of 
 state, for the architect ministered to the pride 
 of his patron. Renaissance architecture he 
 feels was full of insult to the poor in its every 
 line. ' It would not be built of the materials at 
 the poor man's hand ; it would not roof itself 
 with thatch or shingle and black oak beams ; 
 it would not wall itself with rough stone or 
 brick ; it would not pierce itself with small 
 windows wherever they were needed ; it \vould 
 not niche itself wherever there was room for it 
 in the street corners. It would be of hewn 
 stone ; it would have its windows, and its doors, 
 and its stairs, and its pillars in lordly order and 
 of stately size ; it would have its wings, and its 
 corridors, and its halls, and its gardens" as if all 
 the earth were its own. But it understood the 
 Jluxury of the body : the terraced and scented 
 and grottoed garden, with its trickling foun- 
 tains and slumbrous shades ; the spacious hall 
 and lengthened corridor for the summer heat ; 
 the well-closed windows and perfect fittings 
 and furniture for defence against the cold ; and 
 the soft picture and frescoed wall and roof.' 
 But this modern luxury or comfort Ruskin 
 contemns in comparison with the ' twisted
 
 A RAT OF LIGHT. 209 
 
 traceries, and deep-wrought foliage, and burn- 
 ing (stained glass) casements of Gothic windows, 
 when the tapestries swayed in the wind in the 
 baron's hall.' ' 
 
 " All that sounds very romantic," Tib com- 
 mented, " but it does not keep pace with the 
 march of civilization, which demands' comfort, 
 and sanitation, and elegance rather than bar- 
 baric picturesqueness. " 
 
 "You have the idea exactly," Angelo re- 
 plied; "and Kuskin could not deny this, or 
 refuse the tribute of a certain appreciation of 
 the Renaissance style. Listen to what he wrote 
 of the Grimani palace : 
 
 " * Of all the buildings in Venice later in date, 
 than the final additions to the Ducal Palace, 
 the noblest, beyond all question, is the Post 
 Office (now the Court of Appeals), still known 
 to the gondolier by its ancient name, the Casa 
 Grimani. It is composed of three stories, of the 
 Corinthian order, at once simple, delicate, and 
 sublime ; but on so colossal a scale that the 
 three-storied palaces on its right and left 
 only roach to the cornice which marks the 
 level of its first floor. Nor is the finish of 
 its details less notable than the grandeur of
 
 210 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 their scale. There is not an erring line nor 
 a mistaken proportion throughout its noble 
 front ; the decoration is sparing but delicate ; 
 the first story simpler than the rest in that it 
 has pilasters instead of shafts ; but all with 
 Corinthian capitals rich in leafage and fruited 
 delicately ; the rest of the walls fiat and smooth, 
 and the mouldings sharp and shallow, so that 
 the bold shafts look like crystals of beryl run- 
 ning through a rock of quartz. This palace is 
 the principal type at Venice, and one of the 
 best in Europe of the central architecture of 
 the Renaissance schools that carefully studied 
 and perfectly executed architecture to which 
 those schools owe their principal claims to our 
 respect, which became the model of most of the 
 important works subsequently produced by civ- 
 ilized nations.' ' 
 
 " What do you consider the finest Renais- 
 sance building in Venice f ' Tib asked. 
 
 "I agree with Hare," Angelo replied, "in 
 thinking that the Libreria Vecchia, on the west 
 side of the Piazzetta, is the finest building of 
 the sixteenth century in Venice. It is the mas- 
 terpiece of Jacopo Tatti, called Sansovino, in 
 1536, and is mentioned by Aretino as ' super lore
 
 A RAY OF LIGHT. 211 
 
 air inmdiaS The foundation of the library 
 was the collection of Petrarch, who came to 
 settle in Venice in 1529, and made ' St. Mark 
 the heir of his library.' You must see the 
 great hall. It is very handsome, and contains 
 paintings by Paul Veronese and two great 
 works of Tintoretto' The Body of St. Mark 
 Stolen from the Saracens ' and * St. Mark Res- 
 cuing a Sailor. ' Between the windows are a 
 row of philosophers, which Ruskin describes as 
 the finest thmg of the kind in Europe. Ad- 
 joining the palace and facing the lagoon is the 
 Zecca, or mint, also built by Sansovino. It 
 gave its name to the zecchino or sequin, the 
 favorite coin of the republic, of the same value 
 as the ducat, which derived its name from the 
 word ducatus (duchy)." 
 
 " When Shylock laments his lost ducats, I 
 always wondered how much they were worth 
 in our money, " said Tib. 
 
 " About six shillings now, but nine in the 
 time of Shakespeare." 
 
 " Tell me more, please, about Sansovino. 
 He- was the chief architect of the Renaissance, 
 was he not ?' ' 
 
 " Hardly. We must concede that honor to
 
 212 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Bramanlcj, who began St. Peter's at Home, and 
 built the great galleries of the Vatican ; but he 
 never came to Venice, and perhaps Sansovino 
 would not have done so if he had not been 
 driven away by the sack of Rome. Fortunate 
 it was for our city that he sought refuge here. 
 He was first employed in restoring the cupola 
 of San Marco, which he did so successfully that 
 he was given a governmental position with a 
 house and a salary. Then he turned his atten- 
 tion to beautifying the Piazza. He turned 
 out the market, with its butchers' and green- 
 grocers' stalls, built the library and fagade 
 of the Procurazie and the classic Colonnade 
 which gives the Piazza its distinction. Many 
 of the palaces which he built are still stand- 
 ing. I want to take you to the Palazzo Del- 
 fine, the Palazzo Moro, the Palazzo Garzoni, 
 the Palazzo Corner della Ca' Grande, and the 
 Palazzo Tiepolo. His architecture was all 
 good construction. It was Palladio who built 
 facades which were only masks, whose digni- 
 fied exterior did not express the real ar- 
 rangement of the petty stories wKch they 
 concealed. " 
 
 " Then that is why the term Palladian archi-
 
 A RAY OF LIGHT. 213 
 
 tecture has come to mean something very gran- 
 diose, but not sincere." 
 
 " Exactly. The Church of the Redentore is 
 the best example of Palladio' s style. I would 
 like to show you the difference between the 
 buildings of these two architects, and you will 
 understand then why Ruskin disliked the later 
 Renaissance, with its overloading of meaning- 
 less ornament, arid why I admire the earlier 
 period, with its severe classicism." 
 
 And so it came about that their intimacy was 
 strengthened, and that the count's resolutions 
 to hold himself quite aloof were swept away. 
 Everything and everybody seemed to conspire 
 to throw them together. They visited not only 
 Sansovino's palaces, but others of this period > 
 the Palazzo Baffo, in the Campo St. Maurizio, 
 decorated by Paul Veronese ; the Palazzo Mo- 
 cenigo, where Lord Byron lived ; the Vendra- 
 mini Palace, a magnificent specimen of the 
 Renaissance style and beautifully restored. 
 Ruskin speaks of it as " well maintained and 
 noticeable as having a garden beside it, rich 
 with evergreens and decorated by gilded rail- 
 ings, and white statues that cast long streams 
 of snowy reflection down into the d^ep water.'*
 
 214 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Many titled personages have occupied the Ven- 
 dramini Palace, but its noblest guest was Rich- 
 ard Wagner, who died there in 1883. 
 
 The Palazzos Papadopoli and Corner Spinelli 
 were both good examples of the style ; but, 
 after the Grimani, Tib liked best the Palazzo 
 Pesaro. These Renaissance palaces were fre- 
 quently richly frescoed. Tib visited several 
 whose interiors might have served Howells for 
 this description of one which he does not name : 
 
 " We entered its coolness and dampness, and 
 wandered up the wide marble staircase, past the 
 vacant niches of departed statuary, and came 
 on the third floor to a grand portal, and we 
 were aware that we stood upon the threshold of 
 our ruinous noble's great banqueting hall, 
 where he used to give his magnificent feste da 
 batto. Lustrissimo was long gone, with all his 
 guests, but there in the roof were the amazing 
 frescoes of Tiepolo's school which had smiled 
 down on them as now they smiled on us ; great 
 piles of architecture, airy tops of palaces swim- 
 ming in summer sky, and wantoned over by a 
 joyous populace of divinities of the lovelier 
 sex, that had nothing but their loveliness to 
 clothe them and keep them afloat ; the whole
 
 A RAT OF LIGHT. 215 
 
 grandiose and superb beyond the effect of 
 words, and luminous with delicious color. How 
 it all rioted there with its inextinguishable 
 beauty in the solitude and silence, from day to 
 day, from year to year, while men died and 
 systems passed, and nothing remained un- 
 changed but the instincts of youth and love 
 which inspired it. It was music and wine and 
 wit ; it was so warm and glowing that it made 
 the sunlight cold ; and it seemed ever after a 
 secret of gladness and beauty that the sad old 
 palace was keeping in its heart. " 
 
 It seemed to Tib and Winnie that they knew 
 the fair dames who had revelled in this great 
 ball-room, for they had copied many of the 
 charming pastels of Rosalba Camera,* who 
 has left such an exquisite record of the noble 
 ladies of Venice. 
 
 It was the gayest, maddest ^period of Vene- 
 tian society, while already premonitions of the 
 downfall of Venetian supremacy were to be dis- 
 cerned by the thoughtful, but were disregarded 
 by those in power. Tib studied the period 
 with great delight ; and the two figures which 
 
 * For a sketch of the life and work of this artist, see " Witch 
 Winnie at Versailles. ' '
 
 216 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 interested her most were Titian and Sansovino. 
 She found that the latter, with all his busy 
 career as an architect, found time also for 
 sculpture. There is a lovely Madonna of his 
 k over the door of San Marco ; and the bronze 
 doors of its sacristy, which he designed, are 
 works of great genius. Leader Scott sums up 
 his career with this fitting tribute : 
 
 " So in a life of constant industry, Sansovino 
 passed nearly a century of usefulness, loved by 
 all who were near to him, and esteemed by the 
 illustrious men of his age. At the time when 
 he used to sit among the flowers in Titian's 
 waterside garden, he was a venerable old man 
 with a long white beard, which in his youth 
 had been auburn. He was upright, handsome- 
 ly dressed, and dependent neither upon specta- 
 cles nor walking-staff. Upright in character as 
 well as body, he never broke his word nor de- 
 ceived a living soul ; quick to anger, he was 
 also quick to make amends, and none ever suf- 
 fered an injustice from him. After such a life, 
 death touched him gently. Feeling weary one 
 day, as at ninety-three a man might well do, he 
 laid down to repose, and after a short time of 
 calm rest, without pain, he passed away. "
 
 A HAY OF LIGHT. 
 
 All that Tib learned of Sansovino and his work 
 interested her so much that she determined to 
 
 * 
 
 ask Violante to let her copy his letter, that she 
 might ask the count to help her translate it ; 
 but they were so busy with their studies that 
 she never carried out this intention. 
 
 The book was finished at last, written and 
 illustrated and sent to the printer, and each 
 realized that their pleasant days of companion- 
 ship were ended. Tib accepted the situation 
 very quietly. If she had learned to enjoy this 
 co-operative study more than her solitary paint- 
 ing, she did not confess it even to herself, but 
 went back to her former work very cheerfully. 
 
 Not so Angelo. His work was finished ; and, 
 with nothing to occupy his thoughts, and this 
 delightful comradeship at an end, he was 
 doubly bereft. He thought of a dozen schemes 
 for study which they might pursue together, 
 but he was too honest to propose them. He 
 knew that they were only subterfuges to enjoy 
 her society, which, according to tfie conditions 
 which he had set himself, he could not honor- 
 ably do. His lawyer had reported that he had 
 made every research possible, and that there 
 was no possibility of proving that Giovanni
 
 218 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Zanelli had been judicially murdered, unless 
 the Greek Chrysolarus had left some written 
 statement, or if it could be proved by the writ- 
 ten statement of other witnesses that Chryso- 
 larus was not sent by the Sultan, but was in 
 reality a student of medicine, and that the prac- 
 tices of Dr. Zanelli were all in the legitimate 
 line of his profession. The lawyer had caused 
 inquiries to be made in Constantinople and in 
 Athens for any persons by the name of Chryso- 
 larus, hoping to be able to learn something of 
 this mysterious man through his descendants, 
 but so far all of these researches had been 
 utterly without success. For days Angelo 
 brooded over the matter, reasoning in a circle 
 and always coming back to the same walled 
 door. 
 
 The others noticed his depression, but no one 
 but Winnie had any clew as to its cause. " He 
 is acting Hamlet all to himself," she thought, 
 *' and is so overwrought thinking of -a past 
 tragedy that he is creating one for himself in 
 the present. I will have another talk with him 
 and see if I can't straighten him out." 
 
 Even as this benevolent resolve formed itself 
 in Winnie's mind, Angelo tapped at her door.
 
 A KAY OF LIGHT. 219 
 
 " Please step out on the balcony," lie said. 
 " I have something very important to tell 
 you." 
 
 Winnie obeyed the summons. The count 
 held a newspaper crumpled in his hand and 
 was strangely excited. "You told me," he 
 said, " if I could not prove my ancestor inno- 
 cent to disregard the possibility of any inherit- 
 ed taint and go to the Signorita Nellie as though 
 I were affected in no way by the doings of my 
 race." 
 
 " I told you that I believed such taints could 
 be overcome by one's own effort, and that they 
 faded away entirely in time. So that you 
 would probably never feel any temptation 
 whatever to crime, but only the more abhor- 
 rence for it because it once existed in your 
 family." 
 
 " You used a remarkable simile to enforce 
 what you said," the count continued. " It was, 
 you thought, as impossible that I should feel 
 such an impulse as that in these latter days, 
 when we understand the laws of life so well, 
 the plague should revisit Venice." 
 
 " Yes," replied Winnie ; " I think that the 
 one is as little possible as the other. The con-
 
 220 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 ditions for moral and physical disease have 
 alike changed. Think how different are our 
 ideas on sanitation the great preventive of 
 disease and you are morally different, finer 
 and stronger, than a man even of your own 
 race could have been three centuries ago." 
 
 Angelo laughed. " Yes, the conditions have 
 all changed," he said. " Nothing is the same 
 except good and evil, life and death, love and 
 despair. And in spite of all the improvement 
 I am the descendant of a criminal. And the 
 plague is raging in India and is very likely to 
 revisit Venice." 
 
 He handed her the paper, and to her surprise 
 she saw that his words were true. 
 
 " Oh, I am so sorry," she exclaimed; "so 
 sorry that I used so unfortunate an illustra- 
 tion. But do not lay too much stress upon 
 that. Tell Tib all about it. Let her decide. 
 It is not fair to her not to do so. You are not 
 the only one concerned. Her judgment may be 
 better than yours. I do not know what the 
 crime of your ancestor was, but surely it can 
 have no connection with the plague, or the com- 
 ing of that terrible scourge have anything to do 
 with you."
 
 A RAT OF LIGHT. 221 
 
 lt You do not know what you are saying," 
 Angelo replied. " My ancestor's crime was 
 that he let loose the plague upon Venice, and 
 the only reason why it should come again 
 would be to destroy the descendants of that 
 guilty man." 
 
 " Angelo Zanelli !" Winnie exclaimed, " you 
 have brooded over this matter until you are 
 going insane. Do not think of it. Put it out 
 of your mind. I do not believe that any one of 
 your race could have committed such a crime. 
 It is simply impossible, some wicked plot in- 
 vented by his enemies." 
 
 " I have thought it might be so," Angelo re- 
 plied somewhat more calmly ; " but Giovanni 
 Zanelli had no enemies." 
 
 11 Depend upon it you will find that he had,' ' 
 Winnie insisted, her only thought to get him 
 started upon another subject. " Try to think 
 up all the family traditions ; were there never 
 any feuds or quarrels between your people and 
 their neighbors ? Ask your mother." 
 
 Angelo frowned. "No, not her," he said. 
 " She knows nothing of all this, and must be 
 spared. She is not a Zanelli by blood as I am. 
 And she would know nothing of our history,
 
 222 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 for my father never talked with her of his 
 family." 
 
 " But you must have relations. There are 
 always maiden aunts or old uncles who are per- 
 fect cyclopaedias of genealogical information." 
 
 " Yes, I have an aunt who married into the 
 Cecini family. She was just what you de- 
 scribe ; but I have not seen her for years, and 
 she lives in Rome." 
 
 " There !" said Winnie ; 1 ' 1 knew there must 
 be an aunt. Write her immediately ; or, bet- 
 ter, go and see. her." 
 
 " Thank you, but I don't think" 
 
 But Winnie darted away. She had caught a 
 glimpse of Tib approaching the door, and she 
 ran to meet her. " Come straight up to the 
 balcony," she said, "and talk to Angelo /a- 
 nelli ; he is nearly distracted." 
 
 " What is the matter ?" Tib asked anxiously. 
 
 " Nothing is really the matter. He has sim- 
 ply been studying that very hard question in 
 the Catechism which I never could answer when 
 I was a child. Let me see ; how did it go ? 
 ' Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgres- 
 sion ? ' That was the question, and the answer 
 was : * All mankind, descending from him in
 
 A EAT OF LIGHT. 223 
 
 ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell 
 with him in the first transgression. ' When my 
 grandmother used to catechise me Sunday even- 
 ings, I always went to pieces on that question." 
 
 "I don't wonder; but I can't understand 
 why Count Zanelli should bother his brains 
 about a question in the Westminster Cate- 
 chism, which no one puzzles over any longer." 
 
 "Go and tell him so, and perhaps you can 
 lift him out of his doleful dumps. I couldn't." 
 
 " Winnie, what joke is this of yours ?" 
 
 "No joke, I assure you. Go and ask the 
 count what is troubling him and see what he 
 will say." 
 
 But Tib found Angelo in a very different 
 mood from that in which Winnie had left him. 
 As soon as she had disappeared he had turned 
 again to his newspaper, and continued to read 
 the article descriptive of the plague. 
 
 " The native physicians are very ignorant, 
 and are worse than helpless in this emergency. 
 The victims are daily exposed to die on the 
 banks of the Ganges. Only one doctor in the 
 province appears to have any success in treating 
 the malady, and this is a man of Greek descent, 
 named Chrysolarus, who comes from a long line
 
 324 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 of physicians, and is said to be in possession of 
 a family secret by which his ancestors have 
 from time to time successfully treated this dis- 
 ease at different periods of its visitation." 
 
 A wild hope sprang up in Angelo Zanelli'.s 
 heart. What if this Dr. Chrysolarus were a 
 descendant of the Greek who had fled at the 
 time of Giovanni Zanelli's trial ? What if he 
 were no bearer of bribes, but an earnest seeker 
 after knowledge, and if the practices which had 
 been regarded as nefarious were gropings after 
 some new remedies and preventions for this 
 dread disease \ The possibility made his brain 
 reel ; and Tib, who came to him expecting to 
 find him in one of his dark moods, was surprised 
 at the look of exultant joy with which he greet- 
 ed her. 
 
 " You have come from the Signorita Win- 
 nie ? ' he asked. " She has told you ?' ' 
 
 " Not a great deal ; only that you were 
 troubled about some problem. " 
 
 " A problem ? Ah ! that is it ; but the solu- 
 tion is perhaps near. Only I must go to India 
 to find it." 
 
 "To India! What is the problem? Must 
 you stay long 3"
 
 A HAY OF LIGHT. 225 
 
 Her voice trembled. If Angelo was to be 
 detained long in India they might return to 
 America before he came back, and this be the 
 end of everything. 
 
 He saw the look of dismay in her face, but 
 dared not comfort his heart with what it might 
 mean. 
 
 " Sit down, Signorita Nellie, and I will tell 
 you the problem." And he told her the story 
 of the old alchemist, and his great desire to 
 prove him an honorable man, but not of the 
 issues which hung on that proof. 
 
 " And you must go ? Why do you not write 
 first?" 
 
 "Yes, I shall write, but I feel that I shall 
 go ; but first I must tell my mother everything, 
 otherwise she could not understand the neces- 
 sity of this journey." 
 
 " You should have told her before. A trou- 
 ble shared with one who loves us is a trouble 
 halved." 
 
 "But I would not have her bear rven half 
 the trouble." 
 
 " Do you suppose that one can hide trouble 
 from one's mother ? She has known all along 
 that something distressed you, and it has wor-
 
 226 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 ried her infinitely more because you have not 
 given her your confidence, because she did not 
 know what this trouble -was, than if she had 
 been told the truth. I have seen her watch 
 you with such a hungry, devouring gaze, as 
 though she would read your very soul, and 
 then jest bravely, as though her heart were as 
 light as a young girl's, when you gave her one 
 of your dark, suspicious looks, as though you 
 felt and resented her watchfulness." 
 
 " And you have seen all that ! And I have 
 been so blind !" 
 
 " It takes a woman, I think, to perfectly 
 read another woman' s heart. Tell your moth- 
 er, Angelo, and always tell her everything. " 
 
 And when Angelo told her he was surprised 
 to see how little of a shock it was. " I wish 
 your father had told me this long ago," she 
 said. " It would have made many mysteries 
 clear." 
 
 " Would you have married him, mother, if 
 you had known this family secret V 
 
 11 Certainly, my dear. I would have given 
 him the consolation of my devotion all the 
 more readily if I had known how sorely he 
 needed it."
 
 A BAY OF LIGHT. 227 
 
 Angelo's heart leaped ; but he added, after a 
 moment's thought : ' ' But was it right for father, 
 knowing what he did, to hand down this curse 
 of inherited criminal instincts ?' ' 
 
 " My son, you are not your father's judge," 
 the contessa replied. " Moreover, I am certain 
 that he did not believe nor do I believe that 
 your ancestor was a criminal." ^ 
 
 "If he could only have proved that, how 
 happy we would all have been !" 
 
 A look of infinite pity came into his mother's 
 face. " Even that knowledge might not have 
 removed all obstacles to. our marriage. Still it 
 is best to know the whole truth, and the only 
 grief that is insupportable is the wickedness of 
 those near and dear to us." 
 
 After this the days sped by rapidly until a 
 letter was received from the Dr. Chrysolarus in 
 India, saying that an ancestor of his had had an 
 intimate friend named Zanelli, and that he was 
 in the possession of a chest of papers, medical 
 disquisitions and records of observations writ- 
 ten by this Dr. Zanelli, which he would show 
 to Angelo with pleasure if he would come to 
 India, though he was unwilling to send them to 
 Venice.
 
 228 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 This at once decided Angelo to take the 
 journey. His mother, after studying the docu- 
 ments in the alchemist's cabinet, made no ob- 
 jection, but, on the contrary, encouraged it, 
 though she expressed no great hope of his 
 finding the data he sought. 
 
 "It is always best to do all one can," she 
 said. " Action, the change of scene, will do you 
 good ; and in the mean time I will renew com- 
 munication with your relatives in Rome." 
 
 - The contessa had at first desired to go with 
 her son ; but to this, on account of the pres- 
 ence of the plague in the country, he would not 
 listen ; and John accepted an invitation to 
 make the trip with him as his companion. 
 
 Angelo kept his determination to make no 
 revelation to the last ; only when parting from 
 Tib he said, " I depend upon you to cheer my 
 mother until I return."
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 
 
 HORTLY after Count Zanelli's de- 
 parture an event occurred which, 
 was of interest to all the Amer- 
 icans at the Palaz- 
 zo Zanelli, though 
 more particularly 
 so to Winnie. This 
 was the unexpected 
 arrival of Dr. Van 
 Silva, familiarly 
 known as Van to 
 readers of former 
 volumes of this series. 
 
 When Winnie left Holland it was Van's in- 
 tention to sail shortly for America ; but about 
 this time the plague appeared in China, and at- 
 tracted the attention of investigators in pathol- 
 ogy. One of Van's old classmates at the Pas- 
 teur Laboratory in Paris, Dr. Yersin, discovered
 
 '"'SO WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 .die plague germ and labored to cultivate an 
 anti-plague serum which would prove the same 
 antidote for this disease as antitoxin for diph- 
 theria. By inoculating goats and donkeys 
 with the plague bacillus, at first in minute 
 quantities, and repeating the inoculation from 
 time to time, he succeeded in developing a germ 
 which, introduced into the blood of a plague- 
 stricken patient, destroyed the deadly bacillus. 
 Dr. Yersin proved the efficacy of his great 
 discovery by nursing twenty-three victims of 
 the plague in Amoy, of whom he cured twenty- 
 one, when in the ordinary course of the disease 
 twenty-one at least would have died. 
 
 Van was full of admiration for this great 
 pioneer in medical science, and of enthusiasm 
 for the study of bacteriology itself, and instead 
 of returning to America, he lingered in Paris, 
 studying its latest developments. Just at this 
 time a convention of scientists was held at Ven- 
 ice to discuss the disease, and Van determined 
 at once to attend it. He had a vague hope that 
 a way might open to his going out to the 
 Orient either to join Dr. Yersin or as a medical 
 missionary to some other plague-stricken dis- 
 trict ; and even if this project should fail, Van
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 231 
 
 felt that the irip to Venice would be fully re- 
 warded by the pleasure of again meeting Win- 
 nie. He was glad that the convention would 
 detain him for some time in the beautiful city ; 
 and though under ordinary circumstances he 
 would have fumed with impatience at the slow- 
 ness of its proceedings, and' that there seemed 
 to be no likelihood of the organization of any 
 expedition of scientists for experimental study 
 or of a relief corps of nurses and physicians 
 under the auspices of the Red Cross, he quieted 
 his conscience with the plea that the delay was 
 enforced, and gave himself up to the delight 
 which he always experienced in Winnie's so- 
 ciety. 
 
 At first he had taken a room at a neighbor- 
 ing hotel, but he happened to mention to Win- 
 nie that he desired an apartment where he 
 could carry on his studies and experiments, 
 and as the contessa had shown the old alche- 
 mist's little suite quite unreservedly to them all, 
 explaining the spring which opened the secret 
 door in the studio, it immediately occurred to 
 Winnie that this was the very place for Van. 
 He agreed with her emphatically, and Adelaide 
 was empowered to negotiate with the contessa
 
 232 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 for the rental of the rooms. The contessa kind- 
 ly responded by insisting that Van should oc- 
 cupy them as her guest, and Van was imme- 
 diately installed. The place was marvellously 
 fitted for all his needs, for in the walled gar- 
 den, with which the suite alone communicated, 
 there were old rabbit hutches and sheds for ani- 
 mals. As Van laughingly remarked, if the old 
 alchemist had himself been a bacteriologist, he 
 could not have provided him more perfectly 
 with conveniences where experiments could be 
 carried on apart from the espionage of prying 
 curiosity. 
 
 Van was greatly interested in the history of 
 this Dr. Zanelli as Winnie and Tib recounted 
 it. He deeply regretted that his library had 
 been burned, as he would have enjoyed brows- 
 ing in the old books and ascertaining just the 
 status of the science of medicine in the six- 
 teenth century. The alchemist's cabinet was 
 put at his disposal, and Tib showed him the 
 record of Dr. Zanelli's trials and the diary, 
 written in a hand as perfect as print and with 
 perfectly black ink on yellowed parchment in 
 scholarly Latin. 
 
 Van translated the record of the trials first,
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 233 
 
 and then took up the diary, reading scraps of 
 it each morning to the girls as they took their 
 coffee together on the balcony before they sepa- 
 rated for the work of the day. 
 
 The girls had taken up a new occupation, 
 which for several days in the week interrupted 
 their artistic study. 
 
 The contessa had said to Tib : "In the old 
 days, when the Crusaders sailed away to the 
 Orient, their wives and sweethearts, mothers 
 and sisters, filled the dreary days of absence 
 with works of charity and religion. As Angelo 
 fears that his ancestor may have been responsi- 
 ble for bringing the plague to. Venice, or at 
 least for its spread by his foolhardy experi- 
 ments, I intend to do what I can to combat its 
 coming at this time. If your friend Dr. Van 
 Silva will write a lecture, giving the best means 
 for its prevention by simple sanitary rules, that 
 should be known and can be obeyed by every 
 one, I will translate the lecture into Italian and 
 invite my friends to hear it. " 
 
 Van was very happy to do this ; and by the 
 contessa' s efforts a club was founded among in- 
 fluential people, having for its object the im- 
 provement of the sanitation of Venice. The
 
 234 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 contessa did more than this ; she invited the 
 school-teachers to her house, and explained to 
 them how they could instruct their pupils in 
 some of the first principles of healthful living, 
 and especially in the importance of personal 
 cleanliness. With the fresh salt water constant- 
 ly lapping their doorsteps, there was no excuse 
 for the poorest for dirty linen or filthy persons. 
 It was just here that Winnie and Tib organized 
 a scheme which put into practice the theories 
 taught by the school-teachers. Violante's sis- 
 ter was an expert laundress. The picturesque 
 court with the carved well-curb, where the girls 
 painted, was frequently sloppy with little run- 
 nels of water, whose cerulean hue came from 
 the indigo on her bench, and on other days the 
 sunny side of the wooden balcony was white 
 with linen drying, and the two scaldinos that 
 heated her irons were each red hot. But Pla- 
 cida could not get sufficient custom to keep her 
 busy, and Winnie and Tib subsidized her for 
 two days in each week to open a free school in 
 fine laundry work for girls. Not only were the 
 girls taught free of charge, but they were en- 
 couraged to bring the family washing to prac- 
 tise upon. Placida soon had so many pupils
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 235 
 
 that she could not attend to them, so Tib and 
 Winnie, who could not afford to increase their 
 money contribution, assisted in teaching the 
 children on ironing day. The contessa was 
 delighted, and offered prizes for the most ex- 
 pert cakes of scented soap, combs, and tooth- 
 brushes while excursions to the Lido, with 
 surf bathing, were provided once a week for 
 the entire class ; this as a matter of pure enjoy- 
 ment, with no hint to the children that it, too, 
 was a sanitary measure and a part of the cru- 
 sade against filth and disease. They soon 
 begged to take their brothers and sisters with 
 them to share in this pleasure, and many of 
 them became fine swimmers and divers. Teach- 
 ing the little laundresses was work to which 
 neither of the girls had been accustomed, 
 and on certain days, when the heat was more 
 than usually sultry, it was very trying ; but the 
 excursions to the Lido were always delightful. 
 Yan went with them, and was a great help as 
 marshal. Winnie was a prize swimmer, and more 
 than once her quick perception and prompt, 
 cool action saved the life of one of her charges. 
 It was owing to her that the season ended with- 
 out an accident, for Tib's heroism was of an-
 
 236 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 other sort, and she admired Winnie's dash with- 
 out being able to emulate it, never realizing 
 that the self-abnegation which enabled her to 
 care for the children on their way to the Lido 
 was as truly heroism as Winnie's more brilliant 
 exploits. Though always gentle and kind, she 
 was firm upon one point. She would never 
 allow a dirty child to caress her. " After you 
 have had your bath and are sweet and clean," 
 she would promise, " I will kiss you with 
 pleasure." And many a child, in order to win 
 this sweet guerdon, the sooner scrubbed her 
 face energetically before going to the Lido. 
 The results of that summer's instruction in 
 cleanliness were incalculable. Each child car- 
 ried to its home new ideals of purity, and 
 became herself a missionary of that virtue 
 which is not only "next to," but an essen- 
 tial part of godliness. She had a way, too, 
 of impressing them with moral lessons by con- 
 demning a boy who had used foul language 
 to have his mouth washed with strong black 
 soap by two of the older girls, and she taught 
 them such texts as "Blessed are the pure in 
 heart." 
 
 It was Placida, however, who taught them to
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 237 
 
 sing the laundress's song, which has been trans- 
 lated by George Borrow : 
 
 " I'll weary myself each night and each day 
 
 To aid my unfortunate brothers, 
 As the laundress tans her own face in the ray 
 To cleanse the garments of others." 
 
 " You must find this a great interruption to 
 your regular work," the contessa said one day. 
 
 " On the contrary," Winnie replied, point- 
 ing to the little silver cross which she always 
 wore, "it is a part of the work which we are 
 pledged to do. Tib and I have felt so selfish 
 all winter that we could not thoroughly enjoy 
 our art work. We have been homesick, too, 
 for the Messiah Home, but now we feel that we 
 have found some work that we can do for our 
 Elder Brother even here, and so we can really 
 enjoy the other privileges that come to us." 
 
 " What do you mean by the Messiah Home V ' 
 the contessa asked, and Winnie told her of the 
 '* children's charity for children." The home, 
 which is such more than in name, where home- 
 less children are cared for, * in great part 
 
 * The Messiah Home, 145 East Fifteenth Street, New York, 
 has been described in previous volumes of this series. Its 
 Vautiful work still goes on, aided largely by children.
 
 238 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. ' 
 
 through the efforts of the King's Daughters, 
 the Junior League, and other bands of children. 
 
 " Are there any Italian children there V the 
 contessa asked. 
 
 " The home has cared for a great many Ital- 
 ians first and last," Winnie replied. "I re- 
 member .the three Amati girls and the Stavini 
 boy at its very first founding. And is it not 
 odd, dear contessa, our first fair was in imita- 
 tion of a Venetian fete. That was because Tib 
 was always fond of anything that had anything 
 to do with Venice." 
 
 The contessa looked lovingly at Tib. " And 
 why was that, my dear, since at that time you 
 had not seen Venice V 
 
 Tib was too honest not to answer truly. 
 " My love for Venice dates from my childhood. 
 It was Count Angelo who told me about the 
 city first." 
 
 "Then my son must help you with that 
 Home of the Elder Brother of which you speak. 
 That idea of endowing a l guest bed ' is a 
 charming one, and Lolo shall own one there, 
 where Italian children far from home shall be 
 entertained. Tell me how to make out the 
 check, and paint for me, to hang over the cot,
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 239 
 
 some scene in Venice. I would not have Ital- 
 ian children forget their native land even in my 
 own hospitable country." 
 
 So the summer passed. It seemed a long 
 time to Tib before the contessa received the 
 first letter announcing her son's arrival in Bom- 
 bay. His description of the plague and of the 
 famine was heartrending. John Nash, too, 
 who at another time would have had eyes only 
 for the wonderful Indian architecture, and the 
 picturesque aspects of Oriental life, wrote only 
 now of the horror of the Black Death. 
 
 They had to journey some distance into the 
 interior to reach the town where Dr. Chryso- 
 larus lived. The count wrote that his quest in 
 the presence of so much misery seemed a very 
 selfish one ; but that he should endeavor to re- 
 lieve as much suffering as possible on his way. 
 He regretted that he had not studied medi- 
 cine ; money could do so little without knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 When Winnie heard this she could hardly 
 contain herself. " Here is Van," she thought, 
 " who has the knowledge. If the count only 
 knew, perhaps he would furnish the means for 
 Van to join him. What a pity that he did not
 
 240 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 reach Venice before the count started, and go 
 with him instead of John Nash." 
 
 But delicacy pre vented both Tib and Winnie 
 from suggesting this to the contessa or from 
 writing to the count, and Van waited in vain 
 for any action on the part of the convention. 
 But his stay was not a futile one. Besides aid- 
 ing the contessa in her plan for the good of 
 Venice, he was learning much, and more by his 
 individual studies and experiments than from 
 the discussions at the convention. He was 
 greatly interested, as we have said in the diary 
 of the old alchemist. " He seems to have been 
 a very worthy man," he said to the contessa, 
 who had requested him to read the diary and 
 give her his opinion of its author. " He was 
 evidently an enthusiast in his profession, and 
 particularly interested in studying the plague. 
 I find here a note in which he copies the diag- 
 nosis given by Greek physicians in the time of 
 Dionysius, 300 B.C., and he draws the conclu- 
 sion that it was the same disease which Boccac- 
 cio describes as ravaging Florence in 1348, when 
 one hundred thousand souls perished. He 
 makes the remark that Venice founded the first 
 quarantine in 1403, and hopes that these meas-
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 241 
 
 nres will be perfected. It is strange that he 
 was considered a magician, for he does not take 
 any stock in sorcery or astrology, which he 
 calls ' old wives' fables.' He writes here of 
 Pietro of Albano, a doctor and professor at the 
 University of Padua, and quotes his own state- 
 ment that philosophy made him subtle, medi- 
 cine rich, and astrology a liar. He praises the 
 Doge Oiio Maliperi, who in 1181 punished poi- 
 soning and sorcery with death. He appears to 
 me to have been an earnest seeker after truth 
 and an experimentalist with new methods rather 
 than a follower of old ones, though he asserts 
 that the Arabian physicians of Cordova and 
 Toledo were in possession of many secrets un- 
 known to the Italian men of science. He was 
 a close observer and very humane. He writer 
 frequently of the diseases of animals, and had 
 made original study in veterinary science. I do 
 not believe that such a man could have had any 
 malign motives." 
 
 " Nor do I," the contessa replied quickly. 
 " The Zanellis were all peculiarly sensitive and 
 tender-hearted. My husband could never bear 
 to see any creature suffer. He told me that his 
 father would never hunt, or fish, or eat flesh of
 
 242 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 any kind, maintaining that as it was not in our 
 power to bestow life, we had no right to take it 
 away. I have never for a moment thought that 
 this ancestor was a wholesale murderer through 
 malice prepense. If he really committed the 
 crime with which he was charged, he was not an 
 intentional criminal. What I fear is that, in 
 his wild experiments, he may have been in 
 some sort answerable to the charge. My son's 
 lawyer, who has been looking this matter up 
 very carefully, says that the Inquisition never 
 had full power in Venice to commit the atro- 
 cious murders which signalized it in other parts 
 of Italy and in Spain, and though at the time 
 our ancestor was executed Leo X. was using 
 his utmost power to push on its work, and had 
 published his bull ' Honestis, ' upbraiding the 
 laxity and leniency which had been displayed 
 during previous pontificates, his most energetic 
 expressions could not induce the Signoria to 
 give up its right of final decision in all matters 
 of life and death. The Inquisition might ferret 
 out heresy, sorcery, or other crimes ; might 
 prosecute and even condemn, but sentence 
 could only be pronounced and executed by the 
 Council of Ten. So, while the persecution of
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 243 
 
 the Waldenses raged around us in other parts 
 of Venetia, and seventy witches were burned in 
 one year in Brescia, the Inquisitor Fra Antonio 
 called in vain upon our Senate for aid in sup- 
 porting his measures, and Venice remained a 
 haven of refuge for the persecuted. Conse- 
 quently, though the crime for which our ances- 
 tor finally suffered was said to have been com- 
 mitted during the plague of 1511, he was twice 
 brought to trial, and was not finally executed 
 until fully ten years later. It would seem that 
 he had every chance for justice, for at his first 
 trial he was acquitted by the Holy Office itself, 
 through the influence of Cardinal Bembo, and 
 the matter was never carried to the Signoria. 
 But when the charges were renewed and ap- 
 proved to the satisfaction of the Inquisition, 
 the proceedings were carefully revised and rati- 
 fied by the Council of Ten, so that he perished 
 not alone as a victim of the Inquisition, but as 
 an ordinary criminal condemned by the State 
 for a secular offence." 
 
 " And yet you say, contessa, that you agree 
 with me in believing him innocent." 
 
 11 Innocent, but none the less the cause of 
 great calamity to his native city, and the trans-
 
 244 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 mitter to Ms descendants of an ineradicable 
 curse. I have sent my son on this quest with 
 no hope of any success, but to distract his mind 
 and for another reason. I fear that he is quite 
 right in his conclusion that no Zanelli since the 
 alchemist had or has any right to marry. " 
 
 " I understand you," said Van with profound 
 respect and pity. " You believe that Giovanni 
 Zanelli was insane, and that this insanity was 
 hereditary ?' ' 
 
 The contessa bowed silently. 
 
 " Why do you think so ? Were there any 
 other members of the family who were indis- 
 putably deranged ?" 
 
 " I am not so conversant with the family his- 
 tory as I could wish. My husband was pecu- 
 liarly reticent on this point ; but from what I 
 have gathered, the Zanellis were all more or 
 less peculiar. My husband's father, as I have 
 said, was what we would call to-day a crank in 
 his vegetarian and other humanitarian theories. 
 In my husband's own case the tendency showed 
 itself only mildly in a melancholy and secre- 
 tive disposition, a characteristic which I have 
 noticed with grave solicitude developing in my 
 son."
 
 A MODERN ALCHEMIST. 245 
 
 Van looked very grave. The case was tak- 
 ing on new bearings. " I cannot help thinking 
 you are wrong," he said. "This diary, as I 
 have studied it so far, is no,t the record of the 
 workings of a diseased mind. From this point 
 on it contains the careful noting of his experi- 
 ments. These 1 will follow, and I hope soon 
 to be able to prove to you that Dr. Zanelli was 
 neither a criminal nor a maniac, but a man who 
 lived three centuries too soon and a martyr to 
 science." 
 
 " In the mean time I hope to hear from my 
 husband's aunt, to whom I have written for en- 
 lightenment, and I beg you, Dr. Yan Silva, 
 to conduct your researches as impartially as 
 though your friendship for us did not bias your 
 wishes. Remember that a physician must often 
 be cruel to be kind ; and should you find rea- 
 son to believe that my apprehensions are well 
 founded, I beg you to induce these young Amer- 
 ican girls to leave for America before my son's 
 return. I am sure you will understand me 
 when I say that it is because I sincerely love the 
 Signorita Nellie that I make this request. "
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 C.ESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 
 
 "There be quick poisons and slow poisons poisons that 
 strike with instant death so soon as they be swallowed ; and 
 poisons whereby the victims endure a thousand deaths, 
 dying by inches, as by some mysterious disease. And these 
 poisons be the most malignant, not only because they who 
 have taken them suffer longer, but because in their lingering 
 they transmit the evil of their effects in diseased constitutions 
 to their posterity, so that one may strike not one's enemy 
 alone but his remotest descendant, and that with a refinement 
 of cruelty as exquisite as its workings are sure and subtle." 
 Old Book on Toxicology. 
 
 OUNT ANGELO had been 
 gone some weeks before 
 Tib happened to think of 
 the letters in Violante's 
 possession and the pos- 
 sibility that they might throw 
 some light on the story of the 
 old alchemist. This possibility 
 flashed across her mind one day 
 when reading a history of the 
 Italian Renaissance by Symonds. 
 He gives better than any other 
 author the historical back- 
 ground of the time in which Dr. Zanelli 
 lived ; and as Tib read of Titian, of Loo X.,
 
 C^SSAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 247 
 
 and the Borgias, it struck her that Caesar 
 Borgia's name had been mentioned in one of 
 the letters, and she determined to see Yiolante 
 at once and ask her permission to translate 
 them. That we may understand these letters 
 as Tib did, it will be well to give here a brief 
 resume of the lives of some of the personages 
 of whom she had been reading, referring the 
 reader also to the dates given in the preface for 
 a complete comprehension of the succession of 
 events. 
 
 It was the time of the Renaissance, that won- 
 derful period when all over Italy learning, lit- 
 erature, the arts, inventions, discoveries, new 
 schemes of government had their new birth ; 
 and it was an era of great wealth and luxury, 
 when nothing seemed impossible to accomplish 
 to men of genius and of daring, and these were 
 everywhere in every rank and profession. 
 
 The time makes the man. This is nowhere 
 more evident than in a consideration of the 
 Popes. Those from 1447 to 1 527, under the influ- 
 ence of the Renaissance, were luxurious, selfish, 
 unscrupulous ; the Popes and prominent church- 
 men who followed them in the remainder of 
 the sixteenth century, stimulated by the great
 
 24P WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 reform outside the Church, while uncom- 
 promising opponents of Protestantism, were 
 themselves active reformers, often men of 
 saintly lives, self-denying and stern. This re- 
 form within the Church is a fact of which Prot- 
 estants are apt to lose sight. Savonarola was a 
 product of this period, a protest of all that was 
 sincere in the Church against its corruptions, and 
 no saintlier soul ever lived than Carlo Borromeo. 
 Do you remember his story ? Brought up in 
 that princely ancestral home on Isola Bella, in 
 Lago Maggiore, his soul filled full with the 
 beautiful, he devoted all his wealth, his superb 
 scholarship, his life to God. At first he felt 
 that the mission of his life was to build the 
 most beautiful cathedral in Italy, and as Arch- 
 bishop of Milan his fortune, his influence, and 
 his critical taste were devoted to this ambition. 
 Urged by his passion, the cathedral shot up like 
 a lily not built piecemeal through different 
 ages, but with all the coherence of one guiding 
 mind. It was the dream of his life k> chant the 
 " Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
 peace" at its dedication. Then the black 
 plague swept down upon Italy, and the dead 
 and dying lay in the streets of Milan. Carlo
 
 BORGIA'S REVENGE. 249 
 
 Borromeo took the funds which he had set aside 
 for the building of his beloved cathedral and 
 opened hospitals, organized the monks into a 
 sanitary commission and into bands of nurses, 
 and himself drove about the fever-stricken 
 streets collecting the sick. Under his energetic 
 measures the plague was stayed, but as its last 
 victim, Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop of Milan, 
 lay dead. In a jewelled casket in the crypt of 
 the finished cathedral, whose many- statued pin- 
 nacles his longing eyes never saw, they buried 
 the man who loved his fellow-men more than 
 the dear ambition of his life, or than life itself, 
 and who shall deny his right to canonization ? 
 
 Even the men whom we brand as. supporters 
 of the Inquisition were many of them sincere in 
 their rigor, seeking to cleanse the Church of its 
 sins. But this period of reform was the swing 
 of the pendulum from one of license. Rodrigo 
 Borgia, who in 1492 became Pope as Alexander 
 VI., is a type of the worst of the Popes of the 
 Renaissance. The Borgias, father and son, are 
 an interesting study. So expert were they in 
 poisoning that they could 
 
 " Carry pure death in an earring, a casket, 
 A signet, a fan mount, a filigree basket."
 
 250 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 At Alexander's election, we are told by Sym- 
 onds how shamelessly the cardinals' votes were 
 bought. The Cardinal Ascanio Sforza sold his 
 vote for the lucrative post of vice-chancellor ; 
 the Orsini for the Borgia palaces at Rome, to- 
 gether with two castles ; Cardinal Colonna for 
 the_abbey of Subiaco ; others were bought with 
 churches and bishoprics. Less influential mem - 
 bers sold themselves for gold, and to meet their 
 demands the Borgias sent Cardinal Sforza four 
 mules laden with coin in open day. The fiery 
 Cardinal Giuliano de Rovere (who later in 
 life himself became Pope under the title of 
 Julius II.) remained implacable and obdurate. 
 He defied the whole brood of Borgias, and from 
 this time always wore secret armor. He and 
 five other cardinals alone refused to sell their 
 votes, but the majority of the electoral college 
 were corrupted, and Alexander Borgia was 
 elected, the young Cardinal Giovanni de Medici 
 (afterward Leo X.) whispering, on the an- 
 nouncement, " We are in the wolf's jaws ; 
 he will gulp us down unless we make our 
 flight good." A writer of the day says he 
 combined craft with singulai sagacity, a 
 sound judgment with extraordinary powers
 
 CAESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE, 251 
 
 of persuasion. Symonds asserts, " All con- 
 siderations of religion and morality were sub- 
 ordinated by him to policy." He not only 
 sold benefices, but murdered the holders and 
 sold them over and over again. 
 
 The Venetian ambassador wrote in 1500 : 
 " Evevy night they find in Rome four or five 
 murdered men, bishops and prelates and so 
 forth." Three cardinals were known to have 
 been poisoned by the Pope. Caesar Borgia, his 
 son, was still more reckless, and caused all who 
 opposed him to be assassinated either by the 
 stiletto or by poison. 
 
 To show the general spread of wickedness 
 which followed those illustrious examples, I 
 quote from another authority : 
 
 " Italian history teems with instances which 
 sufficiently show that poison was both the 
 favorite weapon of the oppressor and the re- 
 venge of the oppressed. The Borgias are gen- 
 erally singled out and held up to the horror 
 and detestation of mankind ; but they merely 
 employed this method of destroying their ad- 
 versaries a little more frequently than their 
 neighbors. In 1648 it was found that young 
 widows were extraordinarily abundant in
 
 252 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Rome, and that most of the unhappy mar- 
 riages were speedily dissolved by the sickness 
 and death of the husband ; and further in- 
 quiries resulted in the discovery of a secret so- 
 ciety of young matrons which met at the house 
 of an old hag, by name Hieronyma Spara, a re- 
 pute 1 witch, who supplied~those of them who 
 wished with a slow poison, clear, tasteless, and 
 limpid, and of strength sufficient to destroy life 
 in the course of a day, week, month, or number 
 of months, as the purchaser preferred. Half a 
 century later the discovery was made of a sim- 
 ilar organization at Naples, headed by an old 
 woman of threescore and ten, named Toffania, 
 who manufactured a poison similar to that of 
 La Spara, but known as Aqua Tofana. After 
 having caused the death of more than six hun- 
 dred persons, Toffania was seized, tried, and 
 strangled. v 
 
 Lucrezia Borgia was for a long time consid- 
 ered equally criminal, but is now believed to 
 have been innocent of the crimes imputed to 
 her. For eleven years the Pope Alexander and 
 his son rioted in wickedness, and then both ac- 
 cidentally drank poisoned wine prepared for 
 the Cardinal of Corneto. The Pope died, and
 
 CAESAR BOKGIA'S REVENGE. 253 
 
 though Caesar Borgia recovered, his enemies 
 concerted means for his downfall. 
 
 Pope Julius II., though utterly worldly, was 
 a stronger temporal prince than any of his pred- 
 ecessors, and he left the papacy enriched and 
 strengthened. Leo X., who succeeded Julius 
 in 1513, was the second son of Lorenzo the Mag- 
 nificent. He was thoroughly a Medici and a 
 product of the Renaissance. When he was 
 made Pope he said to the Duke of Nemours, 
 " Let us enjoy the papacy, since God has given 
 it to us." This was the keynote of his pontifi- 
 cate ; masks and balls, comedies and carnival 
 processions filled the streets of Rome. He is 
 praised as a princely patron of art, but he was 
 ruinously extravagant. Julius had left seven 
 hundred thousand ducats in the coffers of St. 
 Angelo, and the creation of thirty-nine cardi- 
 nals in 1517 brought it above five hundred thou- 
 sand more, yet the bankers and cardinals of 
 Rome were half ruined by loans which Leo X. 
 extorted from them ; and when he died the very 
 jewels of his tiara were pledged to pay his 
 debts. He lived joyously, but he was a scholar 
 and the friend of scholars. A wily statesman, 
 he was able to make both Francis I. and
 
 254 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Charles V. his tools, and to work the ruin 
 both of the dauntless Savonarola and of the 
 republic which the reforming monk had estab- 
 lished in Florence, and to re-establish his exiled 
 family in their power. A time-server, he saw 
 that the feeling of the people was setting to- 
 ward a sterner doctrine, and so, while utterly 
 irreligious himself, he gave his sanction to the 
 Inquisition. 
 
 Bearing in mind that the old alchemist is sup- 
 posed to have lived through the pontificates of 
 Alexander Borgia and Julius II., and to have 
 been executed in that of Leo X., and that the 
 visitation of the plague during which he made 
 his experiments was that of 1511, when Gior- 
 gione died, we will take up the letters which 
 Tib found waiting for her translation. 
 
 ORAZIO'S FIRST LETTER. 
 
 To the Illustrious Signorita Violante Palma. 
 
 HONORED LADY : I write touching a matter 
 concerning which you asked me, when you 
 were doing my father the honor to pose for him 
 in his studio (but which I could not expound 
 in detail at that time, owing to the presence of 
 persons upon whose discretion I could not
 
 CAESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 255' 
 
 count) namely, the unjust trials and murder- 
 ous death (albeit the former were carried on by 
 the Holy Office and the latter executed by our 
 State of Venice) of our mutual friend and my 
 revered instructor, Dr. Zanelli. 
 
 You will remember that at the peril of my 
 life I testified in his favor, clearing him, at his 
 first trial, of one of the charges preferred 
 against him namely, that of concocting the in- 
 famous Borgia poison. For at the time of the 
 visit of that wicked prince Csesar Borgia to 
 Venice, when he sat to my father for his por- 
 trait, though I was then but a stripling, I had 
 already begun mr novitiate as a student of 
 alchemy with Dr. Zanelli, and we were then 
 studying the nature of poisons and their anti- 
 dotes. It was open scandal that the Borgias 
 were expert poisoners, having in their posses- 
 sion a most deadly drug, of whose nature 
 nothing was clearly known except that no 
 chemist had been able to invent a test for its 
 presence or an antidote which could counter- 
 act its effects. My good and wise master was 
 much interested in this matter, and I have 
 heard him declare that if he could submit 
 this subtle poison to certain tests in his lab-
 
 256 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 oratory he could accomplish both of these 
 much-to-be-desired objects. 
 
 Therefore, when Caesar Borgia visited Venice, 
 and came each day to my father's studio, I was 
 possessed with a fascination which kept me in 
 his presence. This fascination had nothing of 
 love in it, for I felt from the first time I beheld 
 him that here was an evil and a dangerous 
 man ; but I brooded over my master's desire to 
 possess himself of the Borgia poison, and I 
 longed for some opportunity to rifle his pockets, 
 when perchance he should be bathing at the 
 Lido or overcome with wine after a banquet, 
 for I doubted not that, serpent as he was, he 
 carried his venom always with him, and that if 
 I watched I should espy it. And this, indeed, 
 happened, but not in such guise as I had fig- 
 ured to myself. 
 
 My father had one of the marvellous talking 
 birds, a descendant of those which Marco Polo 
 brought from the Indies. He kept it in his 
 studio, not because he delighted in its song or 
 speech, for in the former accomplishment it 
 possessed no skill whatever, and in the latter it 
 had been bred up by malicious people who had 
 taught it to blaspheme and to call evil names ;
 
 BORGIA'S REVENGE. 257 
 
 but it was a bird of such gorgeous and wonder- 
 ful plumage red, yellow, blue, and green that 
 my father took pleasure in its color, and had 
 chained it to a perch, from whence it would 
 swear and vituperate to its heart's content. 
 This scandal-causing fowl had no respect for 
 dignitaries, for I have heard it blaspheme in 
 the presence of Cardinal Bembo. and call the 
 doge a prating fool. When Caesar Borgia first 
 entered the studio it flew into a fury, ruffling 
 its feathers and shrieking out its entire vocabu- 
 lary of objurgation, in which were the words 
 murderer, assassin, and parricide. The prince 
 turned white at that last word (though his fa- 
 ther was then living) and drew his sword ; but 
 my father restrained him, explaining that the 
 witless creature had no knowledge of the sense 
 of the words it uttered. But though the prince 
 laughed, I could see that he thought the jest a 
 sorry one, and that he hated the parrot and 
 would willingly have done it a mischief. There- 
 fore, I could scarce believe my eyes the next 
 morning when, entering the studio before my 
 father, I saw the prince feeding the bird with 
 comfits. But I understood better the meaning 
 of this largess when, an hour later, the unhappy
 
 258 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 parrot dropped dead from its perch. My fa- 
 ther was distressed, but the prince smiled sar- 
 donically and said that doubtless the creature 
 had died of too much talking, and that he had 
 kncvvn many men to die from the same cause. 
 
 After Caesar Borgia had left the studio I care- 
 fully examined the parrot's feeding-trough, and 
 found therein several small round comfits, like 
 beads, which the prince had doubtless placed 
 there. These I gathered up with care and took 
 to Dr. Zanelli, telling him the entire story. I 
 have never seen my master so happy or so ex- 
 cited ; he embraced me, bade me keep the secret 
 well, and told me that I had furnished him 
 with the means of baffling many evil designs, 
 which baffling he indeed accomplished, and in 
 this way : 
 
 Dr. Zanelli had a friend in the director of the 
 glass-works at Murano, and for him shortly 
 after this he invented a species of glass contain- 
 ing a chemical so sensitive that the acrid poison 
 would disintegrate it, and the glass so wrought 
 upon would fly into fragments ; and the doctor 
 went often to Murano to drop into the molten 
 glass the chemicals which should give it this 
 wonderful quality. About the same time he
 
 CAESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 25? 
 
 perfected the invention of an antidote, and this 
 and the glasses were sold in Rome, but were not 
 publicly offered for sale in Venice, as there was 
 no market for them, there being no one here 
 who had cause to fear the malice of the Bor- 
 gias no one but my dear master himself ; for 
 it soon happened that Csesar Borgia, having 
 prepared a posset for Giuliano.de Rovere, whom 
 he knew to be his father's enemy and the can- 
 didate for the papacy of the party which op- 
 posed the Borgias, had the mortification to see 
 De Rovere drop into the posset a small glass 
 bead, and when it presently melted, as though 
 it had been sugar, he spilled the wine upon the 
 floor, declaring that it was poisoned, and he 
 would have none of it. Whereupon the prince 
 knew that he was foiled ; and causing his spies 
 to search, he speedily ascertained that Dr. Za- 
 nelli of Venice was possessed of the secret of 
 thwarting their malice ; whereupon they vented 
 it upon his head, but not by the means of 
 poison, knowing that he possessed both test 
 and antidote. But the prince's father, Pope 
 Alexander Borgia, himself wrote to the In- 
 quisitor a* Venice, telling him to look to Dr. 
 Zanelli as one who knew too much concerning
 
 260 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 x 
 
 poisons. That the bloodhounds were put upon 
 the track of my good master in this manner 
 was not known at the first trial, but afterward 
 was explained by Cardinal Bembo, who had 
 the story from De Rovere, after he became Pope 
 Julius, and who so answered the charge w^hen 
 Dr. Zanelli was brought a second time before 
 the court. 
 
 But, as I have said, at this first trial, when, 
 strange to say, the only charge preferred was 
 that he had concocted poison, I brought him 
 safely off, testifying what I have related to 
 you, and that my dear master's endeavor had 
 always been to frustrate the evil designs of that 
 wicked man, Caesar Borgia. I showed one of 
 the comfits which by good fortune I had 
 preserved and I testified how I had seen Caesar 
 Borgia give it with others to our parrot, and how 
 the creature had immediately died ; I fetched 
 the director from Murano also, who brought 
 one of the test goblets and some test beads 
 which Dr. Zanelli had made, and their efficacy 
 was proved in court ; for we dissolved the com- 
 fit in soup, and causing a dog to lap it, it died 
 as the parrot had done ; and then putting one 
 of the glass beads in the liquor it melted, and
 
 CAESAR BORGIA'S REVENGE. 261 
 
 pouring more into the glass it shivered, though 
 water, wine, and other liquids had made no im- 
 pression upon it. 
 
 Thus we proved triumphantly that Dr. Za- 
 nelli had invented a test of the Borgia poison, 
 and the inference was (the charge of poisoning 
 Ibeing preferred by the Pope), that it was the 
 revenge of himself and his son. But though 
 Dr. Zanelli was acquitted at this time, there re- 
 mained, alas ! a vague and unreasonable idea in 
 the minds of, the judges that his knowledge of 
 the composition of the poison, as proved by his 
 power to detect and counteract it, might have 
 been due to his having been its original framer, 
 and that the Pope's knowledge of Dr. Zanelli 
 had been gained in this way, and his charge, 
 though reflecting no credit upon himself, 
 was still a true one. 
 
 But Csesar Borgia, perceiving that he had 
 gained shame instead of the revenge he sought, 
 was not content to rest the matter there, but 
 as I confidently believe, though am not able to 
 certify caused my master to be spied upon by 
 his minions ; and having ascertained in what 
 manner he could be most easily attacked, in- 
 vented a new and more diabolical charge, and
 
 262 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 lodged the same with the Holy Office, accusing 
 my dear master this time of having introduced 
 the plague into Venice, being bribed thereto by 
 the Sultan of Turkey. 
 
 . What gave color to this suspicion was the 
 fact that my master, during the last visitation 
 of the plague, had treated his patients in a new 
 and daring manner, being attended only by his 
 disciple, a wealthy Greek named Chrysolarus, 
 who had come from Constantinople to study 
 with him. This foreigner very foolishly made 
 a great show of his riches, indulging in all sorts 
 of extravagances. Out of gratitude to our mas- 
 ter, he presented him with a cimeter made in 
 Damascus, which was produced in evidence 
 against Dr. Zanelli at his trial as a gift from 
 the Sultan. Nor was this dastardly man 
 there to explain, for on the arrest of our mas- 
 ter he fled for his life, when, had he remain- 
 ed, he might have cleared our dear friend 
 by showing that the transfusion of blood 
 "wnich he had practised had effected the cure 
 of all his patients. And he alone cculd have 
 done this, for he was the most advanced of 
 all of Dr. Zanelli' s disciples, and the only 
 one to whom this marvellous secret had been
 
 BORGIA'S REVENGE. 
 
 confided. The craven had indeed good reason 
 to fear that his testimony would not be received, 
 and that he also would fall under the ban of 
 the Church ; but this in no wise excused him. 
 Howbeit, by a merciful dispensation of Provi- 
 dence, Pope Alexander died just at this time, 
 and his son fell into disgrace, so that there was 
 a change in all matters connected with the 
 Church ; for now Giuliano de Rovere was Pope, 
 and there was a new Inquisitor, who reported 
 the causes waitjng for decision to his Holiness ; 
 and Pope Julius sent Cardinal Bembo to Yen- 
 ice, who told the cause of Csesar Borgia's hatred 
 of Dr. Zanelli, and the Pope ordered a stay in 
 the proceeding ; so that during his pontificate 
 the matter was not brought up, and Dr. Zanelli 
 and his friends took comfort, thinking it was 
 ended. But later Pope Julius dying and Leo 
 X. succeeding to the papacy, he sought to curry 
 favor with those of a sterner sort by fanning 
 the flames of the Inquisition, and the old charges 
 were brought forward again, and many people 
 were burned in towns round about us. Then 
 we saw how unfortunate it was that Dr. Zanelli 
 had not been brought to trial in the pontificate 
 of Julius, who was his friend (for he owed his
 
 264 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 life to the doctor's invention), so ending the 
 matter, instead of laying it upon the table to 
 be brought up when he could no longer protect 
 him. Cardinal Bembo did his best for Mm, as, 
 indeed, always (for he testified in the matter of 
 the book of Pomponazio which asserted that 
 the immortality of the soul could not be 
 proved, which book the patriarch of Venice 
 burned publicly as heretical that he had read 
 the book with pleasure and found it perfectly 
 conformable). Cardinal Bembo, I say, took 
 his part, as he ever did that of the accused ; 
 but he could not prove the finger of Caesar Bor- 
 gia in this second plot, he being so long dead, 
 and the poison of his which he had prepared 
 being of such slow effect that it seemed incredi- 
 ble that he was the author of it. Moreover, 
 the affair was judged not by the Church alone, 
 but by the Council of Ten as well ; and here 
 lay the chief danger to the doctor ; for while in 
 matters of heresy the Signoria did not concern 
 itself, and would willingly have left all to the 
 opinion of Cardinal Bembo, and have protected 
 one of its citizens against the severity of the 
 Church, when, on the contrary, the safety of
 
 CAESAR BORGIA'S REVENOE. 265 
 
 many citizens was concerned, and their death 
 aimed at by a foreign enemy, here was matter 
 of State importance, to be judged and punished 
 by the State. And so our dear master was 
 judged and suffered, being strangled by the 
 civil arm and his body burned by the Inquisi- 
 tion. But one man could have saved our mas- 
 ter, and that was Chrysolarus, and proclama- 
 tion was made for him by the State ; but he 
 came not. 
 
 This, then, is a record of the secret causes 
 which wrought, his condemnation. I cannot 
 but regard it as a blessing that his wife, dear 
 lady, had died before these cruel events. He 
 left but one son, a lad who had not the horror 
 of seeing his father' s body burned ; for after 
 taking leave of Dr. Zanelli in prison, after his 
 condemnation, this son was hurried out of the 
 city by friends of the family, but by whom I 
 know not ; and they fearing the continued rage 
 of his enemies, have so successfully concealed 
 his hiding-place that we have never been able 
 to find any trace of him. All this I have 
 written out for you, sweet lady, knowing your 
 gratitude for our dear master, who cured you
 
 266 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 during the plague, and would have healed your 
 beloved Giorgione had he been permitted ; and 
 
 so I rest, 
 
 Your faithful servitor, 
 
 ORAZIO VECELLI,
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 SHREDS AjSTD PATCHES. 
 
 FTER all, though Orazio's 
 letter had given a clearer 
 picture of the prog- 
 ress of the trial or 
 trials than the rec- 
 ord which the Inquisitor 
 had published, it had proved 
 nothing new excepting the 
 existence of a powerful en- 
 emy. 
 
 Van, who had finished 
 his translation of the diary, 
 was also obliged to confess that his study 
 had developed nothing in regard to Dr. Za- 
 nelli's treatment of his plague-smitten patients, 
 though it threw some interesting side-lights on 
 Venetian society of that period. He spoke of 
 the charming reunions at Titian's house, and 
 of the many illustrious people whom he met
 
 268 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 there most lovingly of Sansovino, and admir- 
 ingly of his sculpture, especially the door of the 
 sacristy of St. Mark's, in which he introduced 
 the portrait of Titian and other friends. He 
 praised most his library and the mint, which 
 Sansovino's son described as "a notable edifice, 
 all interwoven within and without of cut stone, 
 bricks, and iron, without so much as a foot of 
 wood, so that for strength and for being fire- 
 proof there is none other which can compare 
 with it." The only man of whom he spoke 
 with dislike was Pietro Aretinc, a comic poet 
 of the day, who satirized every one with a 
 scurrilous wit, which was often past endur- 
 ance. He related that Tintoretto, finding his 
 sarcasms not at all to his taste, invited the 
 satirist to come to his studio, and when he had 
 him safely within the apartment began to play 
 in a menacing manner with a long pistol or 
 arquebus. 
 
 "What are you doing?" Aretino asked in 
 alarm. 
 
 "I arn measuring you," Tintoretto replied, 
 " and I want you to remember that your height 
 is exactly three lengths of my pistol." 
 
 Aretino took the hint and never afterward
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 269 
 
 caricatured Tintoretto. Aretino's epitaph jvas 
 written in Latin during his lifetime by an ac- 
 quaintance, and has been well translated by 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn : 
 
 " Old Time, that all things will devour, 
 Beneath this stone has hid the head] 
 
 Of Aretine, whose verses sour 
 Spared not the living or the dead. 
 
 His ink has blackened the good name 
 
 Of princes, whose enduring fame 
 
 Survived the coffin and the pall. 
 And if he never did blaspheme 
 Our Lord Himself, the cause, I ween, 
 
 "Was this : he knew Him not at all." 
 
 Tib assisted Yan in his translations. She 
 grew very much interested in the old alchemist, 
 though she had no idea how closely his fate 
 was interwoven with her own. She had, as we 
 know, a facility for rhyming, and after poring 
 for an afternoon over the old record, she threw 
 her impressions into the following verses : 
 
 AN AFTERNOON WITH TITIAN. 
 
 They are gone, those days Elysian, 
 In the studio of Titian, 
 In the garden by the water, 
 Where the painter's peerless daughter 
 Listened to her lover's suit.
 
 270 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Kindly smiled old Sansovino. 
 Scoffed the witty Aretino, 
 Bitter wit like grapes from lava, 
 While Lavuiia's lifted salver 
 Passed the luscious, ripened fruit. 
 
 Many a noble, grand Venetian 
 Graced the garden fetes of Titian. 
 While she posed, his Violante, 
 Bembo sang the songs of Dante, 
 And Orazio touched the lute. 
 
 Who could choose but to adore her ? 
 When he painted her as Flora 
 Aretino ceased his story, 
 Struck with beauty's charm and glory, 
 And the singers all were mute. 
 
 Tib explained that she was not sure that Car- 
 dinal Bembo really sang ; but he doubtless re- 
 cited the sonnets of Dante and Petrarch, for he 
 edited editions of their works, which were pub- 
 lished in Venice by the celebrated printer 
 Aldus, as well as his own canzonets and dis- 
 quisitions on love, over-gay and light for a car- 
 dinal and the keeper of St. Mark's Library, ~md 
 more befitting the time when, as secretary to 
 Cateriiia Cornaro, he led the amusements of her 
 merry, mimic court at Asola, near Venice, or
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 271 
 
 dedicate^, nis poem on " Platonic Love" to his 
 patroness, Lucrezia Borgia. 
 
 "As I read his character," said Winnie, 
 " Bembo was a man of an easy conscience, such 
 as Browning describes : 
 
 " ' Sworn fast to tonsured pate, plain heaven's celibate, 
 And yet earth's clear accepted servitor, 
 And fit companion for the like of you, 
 Yon gay Abati with the well-turned leg, 
 And rose i' the hat-rim, canon's cross at neck, 
 And silk mask in the pocket of the gown.' 
 
 But he was not a murderer and poisoner like 
 the Borgias ; he was simply too luxurious, like 
 the Medici." 
 
 " The Medicis were not so very far behind the 
 Borgias in the gentle art of poisoning," Tib re- 
 plied. " Do you remember the old Capello 
 Palace that we passed the other day on the St. 
 Apollinares Canal ? I have just looked up the 
 history of the romantic daughter of the house, 
 Bianca da Capello. She eloped in 1548 with a 
 Florentine banker, Pietro Bonaventuri, and for 
 that rash act was placed under the ban of the 
 republic. But Bonaventuri died, and the 
 young widow married Duk& Cosimo, De 
 Medici's son, and became Grand Duchess of
 
 272 WITCH WINNIE IX VENICE, 
 
 Tuscany, whereupon the Signoria removed the 
 ban and declared her its own specially beloved 
 daughter. She could not have the bucentaur 
 take her to church, as she might have had under 
 similar circumstances in Venice, but she would 
 have a spectacular wedding procession. So she 
 had a gilded chariot constructed, which must 
 have looked like a Barnum band wagon, and 
 further heightened the ' greatest-show-on-earth ' 
 effect by writing to the Pope, who was a cousin 
 of her husband's, to send her some lions to 
 draw them." 
 
 11 What a festive young lady !" said Winnie. 
 " Bid she do anything else particularly interest- 
 ing r 
 
 " 1 was not impressed by anything in her 
 after-history excepting her death. It was a 
 pity that she did not carry one of Dr. Zanelli's 
 poison- test goblets with her when she left Ven- 
 ice, for both she and her husband died, poi- 
 soned, it is thought, by Cardinal Francesco de 
 Medici." 
 
 " I wonder," said Van, "whether your fair 
 Venetian is the Medicean archduchess of whom 
 Story speaks as having been poisoned in his 
 description of the examination of the coffins in
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 273 
 
 the Medici Chapel ? No, it was still another ; 
 but listen to his account. The same thing 
 might have been said as truly of Bianca. He 
 describes iirst the magnificence of the chapel. 
 Its cost was about live million dollars. Michael 
 Angelo's colossal statues were intended only as 
 adjuncts. 
 
 " ' All that wealth and taste could do has 
 been done to celebrate and perpetuate the mem- 
 ory of those royal dukes that reigned over 
 Florence in its prosperous days. But what of 
 the princely personages themselves ! Their 
 bodies had been placed in the subterranean 
 vaults of this chapel. In 1818 there had been, 
 a rumor that these Medicean coffins had been 
 violated and robbed. An examination was 
 made. Dark, parchment-like faces were seen 
 with their golden locks as rich as ever and 
 twisted with gems and pearls and costly nets. 
 The cardinal-princes still wore their mitres and 
 red cloaks, their glittering rings, their crosses 
 of white enamel, their jacinths and amethysts 
 and sapphires all had survived their priestly 
 selves. Giovanni delle Bande Nere was here, 
 his battles all over, his bones scattered and 
 loose within his iron armor, and his rusted hel-
 
 274 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 met with his visor down. The two bodies which 
 were found in best preservation were those of 
 the Grand Duchess Giovanna of Austria and 
 her daughter Anna. Corruption had scarcely 
 touched them ; and there they lay as if they 
 had just died the mother in red satin trimmed 
 with lace, her red silk stockings and high- 
 heeled shoes, the earrings hanging from her 
 ears, and her blonde hair fresh as ever. And 
 so, after centuries had passed, the truth became 
 evident of the rumor that ran through Florence 
 at the time of their death that they had died of 
 poison. The arsenic which had taken their 
 lives had preserved their bodies in death.' ' 
 
 Dr. Zanelli's diary was not entirely devoted 
 to observations on men and society. Van read 
 them several pages which stated his aims as a 
 physician and his views on what he considered 
 the legitimate practice of his profession and the 
 scope of medical science. This part of the diary 
 seemed to Van a curious mixture of the super- 
 stition of the time and the daring of the orig- 
 inal investigator, who, in his gropings, almost 
 anticipated some of the discoveries of modern 
 science. 
 
 " I have studied," wrote Dr. Zanelli, " magic,
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 275 
 
 alchemy, chirurgery, and astrology. The last 
 has the elements of a great science wrapped up 
 in it, but it is more adapted for the mathemati- 
 cian than the physician. It may develop new 
 discoveries in the geography of the heavenly 
 bodies, so that we may in time receive messages 
 from their inhabitants or even journey to distant 
 worlds. But I am convinced that astrology has 
 nothing to do with the curing of disease or even, 
 as is now firmly believed, any utility in fore- 
 telling the death of man ; therefore I have aban- 
 doned the study. Magic I hold to have a place 
 in the education and practice of the physician, for 
 magic has to do with rnind, and the operations 
 of the mind do most sensibly affect bodily health. 
 While a student at the university at Padua, it 
 was my good fortune to attend a course of lec- 
 tures by the learned Professor Theophrastus 
 Bombast, who takes a new view of magic, and 
 is himself a magician of great power. By him 
 I was initiated into this great secret of the sci- 
 ence. ' The exercise of magic does not require 
 any ceremonies or conjurations, or the making 
 of circles or signs ; it requires neither benedic- 
 tions nor maledictions in words ; it requires 
 only a strong faith. By faith, imagination,
 
 276 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 and will we may accomplish whatever we may 
 desire. By the power of faith the apostles ac- 
 complished great things, and saints performed 
 their miracles by the power of faith. A dead 
 saint cannot cure anybody.' Thus much said 
 my teacher ; and yet have I known the sick 
 really cured by the means of relics. The kiss- 
 ing of a bone of a saint nay, even a bone that 
 purported merely to be that of a saint, while the 
 wicked custodian told me that it was in reality 
 that of a dog. Here the cure was due to the 
 faith or the imagination of the subject, and not 
 to the efficacy of the relic, and was, therefore, 
 not a divine miracle, but a phenomena of magic. 
 Therefore do I hold that magic is a legitimate 
 study for the physician ; and this science have 
 I reserved to myself for future investigation. 
 Its greatest adepts are the Hindoo Buddhists ; 
 and it is my intention some day to travel to the 
 far Orient, and there devote myself to the study 
 of occultism and the cure of bodily diseases by 
 the operations of the mind. Meantime, and 
 until I can give myself the privilege of study- 
 ing the Hindoo sages, I have made myself ac- 
 complished as an alchemist, and shall seek by 
 observation and experiment to make new dis-
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 277 
 
 coveries in this art. I have learned all that the 
 science of those that have gone before can tell 
 me, and notably much from the Arabian al- 
 chemists in their universities at Toledo and 
 Cordova in Spain ; but yet I am convinced that 
 there is much more to be invented in the true 
 use of alchemy for the physician, which is not 
 the search for the philosopher's stone to turn 
 all metal to gold, but to find new chemicals 
 which can be used as remedies for disease. The 
 action of minerals upon the human frame, in 
 their noxious forms, has already been proved 
 in the many poisons in use at the present day, 
 poisons which, many of them, have an entirely 
 opposite effect ; therefore I am convinced that 
 certain ones may be used as antidotes for others, 
 and this action of poisons I am studying in a 
 careful series of original experiments. And as 
 healing may be effected not only by dosing of 
 medicaments, both of minerals and simples, 
 bat also by chirurgery, through operations of 
 the knife, and through the blood, both by the 
 letting of it, as in bleeding for fevers, and 
 equally by the skilful staunching of wounds, 
 and also wonderfully by the injection of medica- 
 ments into the blood ; therefore, I have rendered
 
 278 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 myself an expert chirurgeon. I am studying 
 especially the blood, both by my own experi- 
 ments with animals, and by gathering such 
 data as 1 can from barbers, soldiers, huntsmen, 
 headsmen, shepherds, and slaughterers of ani- 
 mals, believing that it is by observation and 
 experiment rather than by following old fables 
 that we arrive at knowledge. These, then, be 
 the reasons why I reject the title of astrologer 
 and claim those of chirurgeon and alchemist, 
 hoping also to attain to that of magician, but 
 not claiming as yet to have mastered the mys- 
 teries of the magical operations of mind upon 
 matter." 
 
 After this exposition of his aims and views 
 there followed a record of his experiments in 
 finding antidotes for poisons, and careful de- 
 scriptions of the progress of many disorders ; 
 but there were none of the plague. The diary 
 stopped abruptly with the year loll, the date of 
 Giorgi one's death. And yet this was the 
 plague year, and Dr. Zanelli lived and labored 
 for a decade longer. Why was there no regis- 
 ter of his observations during this period ? As 
 Van examined the book more closely, he became 
 convinced that there had been a record, and
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 
 
 that it had been torn out. Why was this ? 
 Had the author himself destroyed it as contain- 
 ing criminating revelations ? Or had it been 
 burned with his library by the Inquisition ? If 
 so, why had any portion of the book been 
 spared ? What he had read he reported on to 
 the contessa as perfectly innocent and sane ; 
 but this did not in the least satisfy her. 
 
 " His insanity probably began to develop at 
 this very period," she said. " The destruction 
 of the record was in all likelihood his own act, 
 since the Inquisition would undoubtedly have 
 made no nice distinctions in favor of exempt- 
 ing the record of innocent years from the 
 flames. It is the work of a cunning mind 
 which destroys damaging evidence, and per- 
 fectly consistent with insanity. My only hope 
 now is to learn something of this singular man 
 and of other members of our family from my 
 husband's aunt, for I have a premonition that 
 Angelo will not be successful in India." 
 
 The contessa's premonition was realized. 
 The next letter from Angelo brought the dis- 
 appointing information that he had reached 
 the town where Dr. Chrysolarus had resided 
 only to find that the Dr. Zanelli to whom he
 
 280 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 referred could not possibly have been his ances- 
 tor. 
 
 " We pored over old papers until late in the 
 night," he wrote, " to be intrigued at times by 
 strange similarities, but to be convinced at last 
 by the incontestable evidence of dates that this 
 is only a strange similarity in names. The Dr. 
 Zanelli whose papers I have just examined 
 lived here in India for many years after our 
 ancestor was executed in Venice. The hand in 
 which the records are written is very different 
 from the precise script of the old alchemist, 
 though his manner of experimenting and of re- 
 cording his experiments is marvellously similar. 
 It is also hardly possible that the Chrysolarus 
 whose partner he was could have been the same 
 man who studied with my ancestor, though he 
 may have been of the same family ; for my host, 
 while he is certain that he was originally of 
 Greek extraction, believes that his branch of 
 the family have lived for several centuries in 
 India, while the Venetian student or spy came 
 from Constantinople, and was heard from by 
 members of our family as living in Constantino- 
 ple after the alchemist's death. So, dearest 
 mother, though greatly puzzled by the baffling
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 281 
 
 coincidence of two such unusual names as Za- 
 nelli and Chrysolarus appearing in conjunction 
 in two such distant places at nearly the same 
 time, we are forced to the conclusion that they 
 were different men. I wish that I might have 
 proved them to be the same, for there is no 
 doubt that the Indian pair were as eminent in 
 science as they were benevolent and upright in 
 character, of which there is abundant evidence. 
 My host, too, is a most amiable and cultured 
 man, but driven and overworked. He has or- 
 ganized a hospital, in which the sick are gath- 
 ered, but it cannot contain all the applicants, 
 and he cannot answer all the calls for his at- 
 tendance. In the presence of so much misery 
 my own anxiety seems the acme of selfishness. 
 My quest is closed, but it matters not. Here is 
 work for me to do, and here I shall remain for 
 the present, nursing these poor people. If I 
 could induce some physician with any knowl- 
 edge of this dread disease to join me here I 
 would not grudge the expense, and I beg you, 
 mother, to see some of the savants at the con- 
 vention now in progress in Venice and see what 
 can be done. " 
 The contessa did not need to advise with any
 
 282 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 of these learned people. She had become con- 
 vinced of Van's fitness for such an enterprise, 
 and they quickly came to an agreement, for 
 this was just the opportunity for which Van 
 had been hoping, and he hastened away to join 
 Angel o in India. 
 
 It was Winnie's turn now to bear absence and 
 waiting bravely, but both she and Tib found 
 comfort in working for others. They kept up 
 their sketching and reading also, for they re- 
 minded each other that their days of privilege 
 in Venice were almost over, and a conversation 
 took place shortly after this which precipitated 
 their return to America. They were chatting 
 with the contessa on the balcony when Winnie 
 chanced to remark : "I want, before I go 
 home, to make a drawing of the most typical 
 of the old Venetians, and I have decided that I 
 have found him in Andrea Verocchio's statue 
 of the ' Condottiere Bartolomeo Colleoni.' We 
 know of him through history only as a soldier 
 of fortune, a mercenary soldier, selling his 
 sword to the State for twelve hundred ducats a 
 month ; but look at the statue, and you can see 
 why the sculptor deserved his appellation ' An- 
 drew the Keen-eyed.' There is so much of in-
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 283 
 
 dividual character there that, as I studied it 
 from the doorway opposite, I felt that we 
 would never have known the man if Yerocchio 
 had not placed him there for all time to face 
 down his detractors. I believe that Ruskin is 
 right when he says that there is not a more 
 glorious work of sculpture existing in the 
 world." 
 
 - " Ruskin must be taken with a grain of salt, 
 I find," said Tib ; " but if he had said eques- 
 trian statue, instead of including all sculpture, I 
 would have agreed with him." 
 
 11 We always hear," said the contessa, " that 
 the statue was partly the work of Leopardi ; 
 but Verocchio was by far the greater sculptor. 
 I wonder how much of the work was really 
 his" 
 
 " I fancy all the real art part," said Winnie. 
 " Leopardi merely cast it from Verocchio 's de- 
 signs after his death. Let me read you what 
 Perkins says of the statue in his '. Tuscan Sculp- 
 tors.' He is always measured and just, and 
 you will accept his estimate, if not that of Rus- 
 kin. Listen to this extract, and tell me if I 
 have not chosen well in taking him for my typi- 
 cal Venetian :
 
 284 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " ' The stalwart figure of Colleoni, clad in 
 armor, with a helmet upon his head, is the 
 most perfect embodiment of the idea which 
 history gives us of an Italian condottiere. As 
 his horse, with arched neck and slightly bent 
 head, paces slowly forward, he, sitting straight 
 in his saddle, turns to look over his left shoul- 
 der, showing us a sternly marked countenance, 
 with deep- set eyes, whose intensity of expression 
 reveals a character of iron which never recoiled 
 before any obstacle. The stern simplicity of 
 the rider is happily set off by the richness of 
 detail lavished upon the saddle, the breastplate, 
 the crupper, and the knotted mane of his 
 steed ; and the effect of the whole group is 
 heightened by the very elegant pedestal upon 
 which Leopardi has placed it.' ' 
 
 Tib had listened attentively. "Yes," she 
 said, " he is certainly the type of the warrior ; 
 but I like better the kind of man we see in the 
 portraits of Venetian scholars, artists, and 
 statesmen. I think it is Stearns who says that 
 there is much more of pathos than of pride in 
 the faces of the old senators and doges in the 
 portraits in the Ducal Palace ; that they look 
 careworn and sleepless. In speaking of Tinto-
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 285 
 
 retto's portrait of Pasquale Cicogna lie notes a 
 look of judicial severity which he thinks in- 
 separable from a high public position, ' combined 
 with such purity, benevolence, and amiability 
 that we accept him at once as the type of the 
 noble Venetian.' I have always thought that 
 Count Angelo grown older would look like that 
 portrait ; and another remark of Stearns's so 
 exactly describes him : ' When you meet a 
 nobleman of real ability, in whose face there is 
 no appearance of family pride, you may feel 
 
 sure that he is a true aristocrat.' " 
 
 / 
 
 There was no affectation in the utter absence 
 of self -consciousness with which Tib spoke of 
 Count Angelo. She was deeply interested in 
 him ; but there was no thought of herself in 
 this interest. Every one else, however, was 
 embarrassed by the remark, and there was a 
 little pause in the conversation, during which 
 Winnie wrathfully addressed her in her 
 thoughts as a little idiot, and wondered when 
 she would find out that she was in love. 
 
 The contessa also winced at this frank ex- 
 pression of admiration, and there was a look of 
 almost motherly pity in her face, though she 
 joined in the conversation in a cold, forced
 
 286 . WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 voice. " The Venetian nobles had many of 
 them very little to be proud of," was her first 
 remark. ' ' At one time, when the republic was 
 in need of money, patents of nobility were sold 
 by the State at fifty thousand ducats apiece, 
 and seventy families profited by the occasion 
 to frankly buy the rank, which is as truly sold 
 to-day when a poor noble makes a rich marriage. ' ' 
 
 " The transaction you speak of was more cred- 
 itable," said Tib, " because it might be consid- 
 ered that the State was conferring a decoration 
 for a very generous gift for the cause of patriot- 
 ism." 
 
 The contessa shook her head. " A sale in 
 both instances," she said. " If American girls 
 only knew, as I do, how heavily the coronet 
 rests on the head of many a fair marchesa and 
 contessa they would not be so mad for titles. 
 How is it Owen Meredith speaks of the season 
 in London ? 
 
 " ' When strawberries are sold in pottles like sheaves, 
 And young ladies are sold for the strawberry leaves.' ' 
 
 " Oh, I see," said Winnie ; " the strawberry 
 leaves between the pearls on the coronet. I 
 never understood the allusion before. Ade- 
 laide threw away a coronet in France, and I
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 287 
 
 don't think that any of us place an overweening 
 value upon them ; but I can't understand, my 
 dear contessa, why you, of all persons, should 
 
 " ' slight the highly bom with rank afflicted, 
 Or treat with lofty scorn the well-connected.' " 
 
 There was a spice of malice in Winnie's fling, 
 for she could not comprehend the contessa's mo- 
 tive for a remark which she felt was unjustly 
 directed at Tib. 
 
 " My own marriage was happier than most 
 international ones," the contessa replied ; " but 
 national temperaments as well as customs and 
 education are so different that such connec- 
 tions rarely prove congenial." 
 
 Tib did not understand this fencing between 
 the contessa and Winnie, but she vaguely felt 
 a chill in the atmosphere, as though they were 
 sailing near an unseen iceberg, and, as in the 
 figure which it suggested, knew that the chill 
 meant danger, and so tactfully piloted the con- 
 versation, as she thought, into other channels. 
 
 " I do not wonder that so many foreigners 
 love to live in Venice, though the Palazzo Rez- 
 zonico, Browning's home, with all its 'arched 
 windows and pillared balconies, ' seems too cold 
 and grand for any sense of home feeling or
 
 288 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 mirth. I thought the rear entrance far more 
 picturesque than the front one. Its ceilings, 
 by Tiepolo and Tiepoletto, and its grand pro- 
 portions all help give it an impression of vast- 
 ness, but the very spirit of desolation seems to 
 brood in the rooms." 
 
 " It was not so in the days of the Rez- 
 zonicos,' ' said the contessa. " You know Pope 
 Clement XIII. was of that family. It is one of 
 our best ; and when Joseph II. visited Venice, 
 in 1769, the republic gave him a concert in this 
 palace, said to be one of the most splendid en- 
 tertainments ever given in the city." 
 
 " It must have been warmer and brighter 
 even in Browning's lifetime," said Tib; "but 
 BOW I could not help feeling as if it were his 
 tomb, especially when I read that tablet on the 
 wall : 
 
 A 
 
 ROBERTO BROWNING, 
 
 Morto in questo Palazzo, 
 
 Venezia Pose. 
 
 Open my heart, and you will see 
 Graved inside of it Italy.
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES,. 289 
 
 I can understand those words, and the inscrip- 
 tion on Rawdon Brown's tomb : 
 
 " ' Anglus Brown am I, 
 
 Although my heart's Venetian.' " 
 
 1 ' Who was Rawdon Brown ?' ' asked Win- 
 nie. 
 
 " He was an Englishman," replied Tib, " who 
 came to Venice intending to stay a week, and 
 lived here forty years, never leaving it until his 
 death. Here is the sonnet which Browning 
 wrote about the incident. I found it in an old 
 number of the Century i 
 
 " ' Sighed Rawdon Brown : " Yes, I'm departing, Toni J 
 I needs must, just this once before I die, 
 Revisit England : Anglus Brown am I, 
 Although iny heart's Venetian. Yes, old crony 
 Venice and London London's Death the bony 
 Compared with Life that's Venice ! What a sky, 
 A sea, this morning ! One last look, good-by. 
 Ca Pesaro ! No lion I'm a coney 
 To weep ! I'm dazzled ; 'tis that sun I view 
 Rippling the the Cospetto, Toni ! Down 
 With carpet bag, and off with valise straps 1 
 Bella Venezifi,. non ti laacio piu ! " 
 Nor did Brown ever leave her. Well, perhaps 
 Browning next week may find himself quite Brown. '
 
 290 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 "Do you know," Tib continued, after a 
 pause, "that is exactly the way I feel? I 
 believe I love Venice as much as Count Angela 
 does. I cannot bear to think of going back, 
 and yet America is my home, and father and 
 mother and my lifework are there, and I must 
 not become de- Americanized. " 
 
 " I don't know about that," Winnie replied 
 with intention. " Your lifework appears to me 
 to be to paint and to draw, and if you can find a 
 way of disposing of your work while you do it 
 here, perhaps your parents will join you, and 
 you can live in some old Venetian palace, and 
 listen, as we do now, from its cushioned bal- 
 cony, to the caressing plash of the sea upon its 
 marble steps." 
 
 Tib's eyes shone with eagerness ; but the 
 contessa spoke up quickly in a voice that quiv- 
 ered a little with suppressed excitement, though 
 she held herself in admirable control. 
 
 * I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. and Mrs. 
 Smith when I was visiting my father, and I 
 hardly think that they would fit into Venetian 
 life. I cannot imagine Mr. Smith loitering on 
 a balcony. He is far too energetic to be con- 
 tent with our dreamy existence. I fear that it
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 291 
 
 would be a great mistake to tear them away 
 from their familiar surroundings." 
 
 " Yes," Tib assented ; " father could never 
 learn to f loiter.' He might be so old and lame 
 that he would have to hobble, but it would be 
 briskly." 
 
 "But you know," Winnie insisted, "that 
 Henry James says there are two kinds of life in 
 Venice, and the Grand Canal ' may mean to 
 you the balcony of a high and well-loved pal- 
 ace, the memory of irresistible evenings of end- 
 less lingering and looking, or the restlessness 
 of a fresh curiosity and methodical inquiry in 
 a gondola piled with references.' ' 
 
 " Gondola life would suit father exactly," 
 Tib exclaimed, clapping her hands ; " he would 
 never weary of the surprises of new exploration 
 and the verification of all his odd scraps of in- 
 formation, for he has been a great reader. And 
 mother is so calm and peaceful, a balcony like 
 this would be an endless delight to her. To 
 give them the evening of their life in Venice ! 
 Ah ! that is something to look forward to, to 
 work for with every power of my being." 
 
 "Believe me, no," said the contessa gently 
 but firmly. '' " They would be very homesick
 
 292 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 here. I tried it with my own father. He spent 
 a month here, and then went home disgusted 
 with the shiftless ways of the Italians. He 
 could never see the picturesqeness of dirt, and 
 unpleasant odors drove him crazy. He used to 
 say that Dickens was the only writer that had 
 told the truth about Venice. There were sev- 
 eral passages in ' Little Dorrit ' which he was 
 so fond of quoting and applying that I have 
 them quite by heart : ' Dungeon -like tenements, 
 with their walls besmeared with a thousand 
 downward stains and streaks, as if every crazy 
 aperture in them had been weeping tears of rust 
 into the Adriatic for centuries, or blotched with 
 mould, as if missionary maps were bursting out 
 of them to impart geographical knowledge ; 
 barred windows, which seemed to belong to 
 jails for criminal rats, with their lattice blinds 
 all hanging askew and something draggled and 
 dirty dangling out of most of them.' He said 
 that when he wanted the sea, he preferred it 
 from the deck of a good ship, and he did not 
 want it to follow him into his very house, so 
 that he could never get the odor of bilge water 
 and an ebb tide on a weedy shore out of his 
 nostrils. It was all a great mistake, and he
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 293 
 
 went back to Scup Haven with infinite relief, 
 and used to declare that the sunsets on Long 
 Island Sound were far more beautiful than any 
 he ever saw in Venice. Think of that ! Why, 
 there is no place in the world where sunsets 
 are so beautiful as here. Who do you think 
 has best painted our sunsets ? To my mind, 
 Ziem is too gaudy, Turner's splendid visions 
 too unreal, and Rico is brilliant, but artificial 
 and chic. Where is the perfect Venice ?" 
 
 "Only here," Tib replied, for Winnie was 
 strangely silent. She was watching the con- 
 tessa with something like anger in her scrutiny ; 
 and Tib, who longed to make peace, followed 
 the contessa's lead. " If your point of view is 
 the balcony," she said, " everything is moving 
 before you ; if a gondola, then you are moving. 
 Did you not experience a feeling of phantas- 
 magoria the other evening when the solid Cam- 
 panile, silhouetted against the palpitating sky, 
 seemed, with its reflection, actually to waver 
 with the rocking of our gondola \ That shim- 
 mering incandescence cannot be painted it can 
 only be described, and I think that of all writers 
 Shelley has done it best. Do you remem- 
 ber :
 
 294 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 " ' And before that charm of light, 
 As within a furnace bright, 
 Column, tower, and dome and spire 
 Shine like obelisks of lire, 
 Pointing with inconstant motion 
 From the altar of the ocean 
 To the sulphur-tinted skies.' " 
 
 "Exactly; But it takes either a poet or an 
 artist to feel that. My father was neither. 
 Take my advice, my dear, and do not urge your 
 parents to come to Venice. " 
 
 The contessa vanished into the house as she 
 dpoke, and Winnie clenched her small fist and 
 shook it menacingly at her retreating figure. 
 
 "What does it all mean ?" Tib asked, won- 
 deringly. 
 
 " I should think you would ask," Winnie re- 
 plied with warmth. " It means that she is a 
 meddling, viperous old thing, and wants to 
 make us leave Venice never to return." 
 
 "Oh, no!" Tib exclaimed. "The contessa 
 has been very kind to us you know she has, 
 Winnie. How can you talk so ?" 
 
 " She was kind enough until she discovered 
 that Count Angelo liked you, and then she 
 packed him off to India, and now she is trying 
 to get you away before he returns !"
 
 SUREDS AND PATCHES. 295 
 
 " How absurd ! The contessa is too clever a 
 woman to imagine such an impossible state of 
 affairs, and she would never have acted upon 
 such a supposition unless the danger really 
 existed." 
 
 " Well, it does exist." 
 
 Tib flushed painfully. " Winnie, you are 
 carrying your joke too far." 
 
 " I am not joking ; and it is not a figment of 
 anybody's imagination, but actual .fact. He 
 told me so himself." 
 
 In the excitement of the moment Winnie had 
 gone too far. She realized suddenly that Count 
 Angelo had told her in confidence, and she 
 pulled herself sharply together, and in answer 
 to Tib's questions, " Told you what ?" " Who 
 told you 1" replied rather lamely, " that the 
 contessa did not approve of her son's liking 
 for you. It was Van told me, and the contessa 
 tried to make Van her confederate. She want- 
 ed him to urge us to return to America ; but 
 Van had no notion of aiding her quite the 
 contrary. If Count Angelo has not already 
 proposed to you, he will after Van gets hold of 
 him." 
 
 "O Winnie!" Tib cried in real distress.
 
 296 WITCH WIXXIE LSf VEMCB. 
 
 " How could you be so unkind, so disloyal as 
 to talk about me in such a way to Van !" 
 
 " I don't see why you should be so indignant ; 
 all I said was that I believed you and Count 
 Angelo were really in love with one another, 
 but were 'two precious innocents who did not 
 know your own minds." 
 
 " And you took it upon yourselves to en- 
 lighten us, and are playing a little drama like 
 that with, which the friends of Beatrice and 
 Benedict amused themselves you to try to 
 make me believe that Count Angelo cares for me 
 when he does not, and Van to tell Count Angelo 
 that I love him. O Winnie, Winnie, I would 
 not have believed it of you !" 
 
 " Now, Tib, listen to reason. Van will not 
 do anything of the kind. He is discreet, and 
 he lias the highest esteem for you. You may 
 trust him implicitly. And as for the contessa, 
 she is only a spiteful old cat, and we won't pay 
 her whims the least attention." 
 
 But Tib was seriously hurt and indignant, 
 and though she forgave Winnie, knowing that 
 her friend had intended it all for her good, she 
 could not bear to remain in Venice until the 
 count's return. She had no more faith in
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 297 
 
 Van's discretion than in Winnie's, and had no 
 mind to remain a passive victim of their plots. 
 She argued to herself, too, that to remain, now 
 that she knew what they were trying to do, 
 was to countenance their plans and to be in 
 some sort an agent in them. " It could never 
 have been in any case," she told herself. 
 " Lolo and I do not love one another ; but it 
 was such a beautiful friendship. Why did 
 they spoil it, for now all the sweet unconscious- 
 ness is gone, and it can never be quite the same. 
 I have lost my little playmate. He can never 
 be Lolo to me again or I Nellie Zanelli." The 
 contessa's unkindness hurt her cruelly. " If it 
 had been true," she wondered, " why should 
 she have wished to separate us ? It is only her 
 own story over again ; our parents were friends 
 and neighbors. Her father, the old sea cap- 
 tain, had a high respect for mine, and used to 
 love to sit on our porch and spin sea yams and 
 watch the Soup Haven sunsets. Why should a 
 title make such a difference ? Did Angelo 
 share this feeling ? she wondered. Was all this 
 quest to vindicate a dead ancestor's honor only 
 an idle excuse for slipping away out of % danger 
 when he felt himself being drawn toward a
 
 298 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 mesalliance f She pressed her burning face into 
 her pillow. There was no such thing as honor 
 or nobility or love anywhere. What was she 
 saying ? Yes, they were all waiting for her at 
 home in the rugged father and the devoted 
 mother whom those people despised. And she, 
 who knew their worth, how had she neglected 
 and slighted them, living with perfect content 
 away from them all these months in a fool's 
 paradise of dream and cloud ! But she had 
 awakened at last, and knew where the true hap- 
 piness waited for her. Heartsick and wounded 
 more by the supposed slight to her loved par- 
 ents than to herself, Tib decided upon imme- 
 diate departure. Winnie would have preferred 
 to have delayed until Van's return, but she 
 knew that he too would soon sail for America ; 
 and as she felt in a remorseful way that she 
 was in some sort to blame for all this, she de- 
 termined not to desert her friend. Professor 
 Waite's arguments and Adelaide's entreaties 
 were of no avail, the less so as the contessa, on 
 hearing Tib's decision, made no attempt to dis- 
 suade her, though her heart yearned for the 
 child, and was pained by the coldness with 
 which Tib received the (what seemed to her
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 299 
 
 hypocritical) messages of affection to her par- 
 ents. She would not have been so misjudged if 
 Tib could have understood her real motives or 
 could have read the following letter, which the 
 contessa had received from her relative shortly 
 after Van's departure : 
 
 MY DEAR COUSIN : This is a strange question 
 which you ask me, " Have any members of the 
 Zanelli family ever shown a tendency to in- 
 sanity ?" You assure me that your reasons for 
 asking this question are weighty, and that my 
 answer shall be held in confidence. As for this 
 last assurance, I care not who knows, for I can 
 truly reply that there has never been but one 
 case of insanity in our long line, and I am 
 thankful that case is clearly proved. Our an- 
 cestor, Giovanni Zanelli, the so-called alchemist, 
 who suffered death as a malefactor, was mad, 
 and this his own writings testify ; but for this 
 we should all be grateful, since it absolves him 
 of all accountability for the deeds which he 
 freely confessed both before the tribunal and in 
 his own handwriting in a little diary which he 
 kept in a cabinet in his private apartments in 
 your house. My grandfather, when visiting
 
 300 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 your husband's grandmother, was so impressed 
 with horror on reading this record, that he cut 
 out the leases of the diary and brought them 
 away, intending to burn them. His conscience 
 would not, however, allow him to do this, and 
 after his return to Rome he could never bring 
 himself to return them to his relative and host- 
 ess, thinking that if she did not know their 
 contents it was cruelty to inform her. My fa- 
 ther, to whom he showed them later in life, put 
 the same construction upon them that I do, 
 grateful that they proved the insanity of one 
 whose misdeeds have always been our shame. 
 He sent the leaves to your husband, who mis- 
 judged the motive, considered the act an insult, 
 and returned them. I would have said nothing 
 about them but for your question, as your hus- 
 band wrote that he intended that neither you 
 nor your son should ever hear of this ancestor. 
 I am sure, however, that he was wrong, and 
 that you will be as glad as I am to know that 
 this unfortunate man was demented. If no 
 other proof were to be 1 found, the internal evi- 
 dence contained in his observations on the dis- 
 covery of " a sovereign ointment for the plague" 
 is sufficient. This crazy man believed that he
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 301 
 
 had found an unfailing cure for this dread dis- 
 ease in blood freshly drawn from a goat, itself 
 diseased, which he kept tethered in the garden 
 back of his laboratory. He was led to this in- 
 sane and dangerous conclusion by the fact that 
 the animal had been owned by a woman who 
 was afflicted with the plague in its early stages, 
 and seeing her goat attacked and wounded by 
 a savage dog, she had rushed out to drive him 
 away, and was herself bitten. Dr. Zanelli im- 
 agined that in binding up the goat's wound 
 some of its blood had been transfused to her 
 own bleeding hands. At any rate, being called 
 in after this accident, he watched the progress 
 of the case, and as the woman most unfortu- 
 nately recovered from the plague, he came to the 
 conclusion which I have stated, bought her goat, 
 and inoculated his plague-smitten patients with 
 its poisonous blood. In this way he was doubt- 
 less responsible for the death of many of the 
 good citizens of Venice. Not morally responsi- 
 ble, however, and he should have been confined 
 in a madhouse instead of executed. Some time 
 after his death a letter was received through a 
 member of the De Rovere family, which we 
 judge to have been written by that Chrysolarus
 
 302 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE, 
 
 who was considered his confederate. It be- 
 sought the son of Giovanni Zanelli to remove 
 to Constantinople, where he would be cared for 
 by those who knew and could prove his father's 
 innocence. This invitation was not accepted, 
 it being thought at the time to come from the 
 Sultan, who was supposed to have bribed Dr. 
 Zanelli to the murder of his fellow- citizens. 
 Your husband knew of this letter, and regarded 
 it, as we do, as written by Chrysolarus for who 
 else could prove his innocence, and how could 
 it be proved excepting by showing that he was 
 a madman ? 
 
 Trusting that you may derive as much satis- 
 faction from this conclusion that we have al- 
 ways experienced, I rest, 
 
 Your affectionate cousin, 
 
 FAUSTINA. 
 
 On reading this letter, all hope died in the 
 contessa's heart. She did not question the 
 conclusion arrived at by her relative, and she 
 now felt that for Angelo to marry would be a 
 positive crime. He might any day become a 
 maniac, and her only thought was to spare both 
 her son and Tib the calamity of loving one an-
 
 SURED8 AND PATCHES. 303 
 
 , if indeed such a calamity had not al- 
 ready happened. She knew that she was mis- 
 understood, but she believed that she was 
 acting for the best good of both, and she did 
 not falter. 
 
 Just before their departure, Winnie and Tib 
 made a farewell visit to the model, Violante, 
 and arranged that the school for laundry work 
 and the excursions to the Lido should continue 
 through the summer. There was much lament- 
 ing and kissing of hands both by Violante, her 
 sister, and the children for the two American 
 girls had gained the affection of all who knew 
 them. Violante reminded them that there was 
 another of the old letters which they had not 
 read. Tib disclaimed any further interest in 
 them, but Winnie suggested that they might 
 prove to be of importance to Count Angelo, and 
 they accepted it from Violante, and presented it 
 unread to the contessa, who looked it over and 
 mailed it to her son, though she found nothing 
 in it to change her belief in the fatal heritage 
 of insanity bequeathed by Dr. Zanelli to his 
 descendants. The contessa was in the little 
 company that escorted Winnie and Tib to the 
 railway station, but their farewells were forced
 
 304 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 and coldly polite. Tib found on their seat as 
 the contessa had so often prepared it for their 
 gondola trips to the lagoons a dainty basket 
 of luncheon. Winnie scoffed volubly, and de- 
 clared that a morsel of it would choke her ; 
 that if she had one of the old alchemist's test 
 glasses it would have shattered at the first drop 
 of the Chianti, and she gave it all ostentatious- 
 ly away to a large family party who were their 
 travelling companions, and regretted her con- 
 tumely hungrily and crossly in the latter part 
 of the day. But Tib hardly knew that she 
 was hungry and faint. She leaned back with 
 closed eyelids, through which the tears were 
 creeping, for she knew that her dream of Ven- 
 ice was dead, and that whatever solace in work 
 and joy in self-renunciation her future might 
 have in store, Venice would always be, as now, 
 
 " So dear, that in the memory she remains 
 Like an old love, who would indeed have been 
 Our only love, but died." 
 
 And Angelo? The news that Tib had left 
 Venice was indeed a great surprise ; but it did 
 not bring any sense of personal loss, for he had 
 decided to remain where he felt that he was 
 needed and was doing good until the special
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 305 
 
 great exigency had passed. After that the 
 world might be wide, but he would find her 
 somewhere, for the papers which his mother 
 had sent him, and which had been discovered 
 through Tib's agency, had removed the horri- 
 ble weight which had been crushing his mind 
 and had awakened hope in Ms heart. 
 
 The first of these manuscripts was another 
 letter from Orazio Vecelli to Violante Palma : 
 
 ADMIRED AND LOVED LADY : I am smitten 
 of a grievous malady, wherefrom 1 fear me I 
 shall not recover, since my beloved master, who 
 alone had the secret of its cure, is no longer 
 with us. Wherefore I am minded to do quickly 
 all needful things. 
 
 I have already written you how my fellow- 
 pupil, Chrysolarus, deserted my master in his 
 sore peril in cowardice, lest he also should fall 
 under the ban of the Church. Yet was he not 
 without compunction, for I have, latterly re- 
 ceived a written declaration of our dear mas- 
 ter's innocence signed by this remorseful disci- 
 ple. This paper was neither dated nor was the 
 address of the sender given, showing that he is 
 still in fear of his life. It was brought me by
 
 306 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 a sailor, who said that he had received it in 
 some port of the Indies. Alas ! it came too 
 late to be of any service to our dear master, nor 
 can I send it to his family, for they have left 
 Venice, and their house stands empty and for- 
 lorn, nor know I whether they will ever come 
 back to occupy it. I paused lately before my 
 good master's door, blocked by the Inquisition, 
 but I found an entrance over the garden wall, 
 which as a lad I had often scaled with the help 
 of the overhanging branches of the tamarisk 
 tree ; and making my way, like a thief, through 
 a broken shutter into the house, I placed this 
 declaration of his disciple Chry solar us behind 
 the portrait of my revered master, which my 
 father painted in happier times'. 
 
 I write you all this, most esteemed lady, not 
 alone because of the interest which I know you 
 have always felt in my master, and because I 
 know what joy it will giv 7 e you to know of this 
 tardy refutation of that great calumny, but 
 also because, though older than myself, God 
 may order it that you live longer, and I would 
 that some one other than I possess the knowl- 
 edge of the hiding-place of this paper, to con- 
 vey the same to any member of that unhappy
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 307 
 
 family, should their whereabouts become 
 known. 
 
 May time kindly spare to you that beauty 
 which so many celebrated artists have delighted 
 in recording, and may providence from plague 
 and pestilence and all other mischiefs ever pro- 
 tect you, is the prayer of 
 
 Your ladyship's devoted servitor, 
 
 ORAZIO VECELLI. 
 
 Only a few days after writing this letter, 
 Orazio and his father both died of the plague-^- 
 Orazio in the public pest-house and the great 
 painter alone in his studio. But Chrysolarus's 
 refutation had at last reached the family of the 
 maligned man. The contessa found it behind 
 the portrait, and with it another long letter 
 containing a revelation so astounding that 
 Orazio had not dared to hint at it in his letter 
 to Violante, and, indeed, would hardly have left 
 the revelation where it could be found, were it 
 not that the actors in the drama were either 
 dead or nearing that safe haven where the rage 
 of the most powerful enemy cannot follow. 
 Chrysolarus had proved Dr. Zanellfs inno- 
 cence, but Orazio did not dare to have the case
 
 308 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 tried over again, as it would have been had it 
 been known that the alchemist had escaped the 
 execution sentence and was in reality living in 
 safety at that time in India. 
 
 The time had not then come for this dis- 
 closure ; but to Angelo the letter explained all 
 that had seemed to him so mysterious and so 
 impossible to reconcile in the disagreement of 
 dates and the different handwriting, and his an- 
 cestor's identity with the learned and benevo- 
 lent man whose record in India he had so great- 
 ly admired was now incontestably proven. 
 
 The letter was addressed to the alchemist's 
 son, and read as follows : 
 
 To Ascanio Zanelli, wherever Tie may be : 
 
 Before you shall have received this, my dear 
 son, the trusty messenger by whom I send it 
 has promised to break to you gently the tid- 
 ings (which, from their astounding improba- 
 bility and the joy with which I doubt not they 
 will be welcomed, might otherwise prove too 
 great a shock for your delicate sensibility) that 
 the father whom you have mourned as dead, 
 and whose dishonored corpse hundreds of his 
 townspeople believed that they saw burned in
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 309 
 
 Venice, by the grace of Heaven miraculously 
 escaped cib Tioste maligno, and is now both alive 
 and, with the exception of a cramping of my 
 ringers by rheumatism, in good health. After 
 the first shock of this revelation is over, you 
 will be consumed with curiosity to know how 
 this can be, and this most natural desire I will 
 now gratify. 
 
 You doubtless remember with affection my 
 pupil, Orazio Yecelli, and the delight which 
 took in the playing upon the organ of his 
 fair sister Lavinia, when on certain occasions 
 I took you with me to the house of my friend 
 the great painter, Titian Vecelli. You will also 
 recall the personages who most did frequent his 
 society, and the pleasure I had in their com- 
 pany. Know then, my dear son, that my won- 
 derful preservation from death is due to the 
 devotion, daring, and ingenuity of that same 
 coterie, with whom I used to hold such delight- 
 ful converse. 
 
 It is a thing almost incredible that so many 
 should have been in the secret and should have 
 had actual parts to play in the carrying out of 
 the plot, and yet nothing have been discovered 
 by the spies of the Council of Ten, who are
 
 310 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 everywhere. Yet such was the unanimity of 
 feeling existing between this band of brothers, 
 such their closeness in guarding the secret, 
 that not only was my escape successfully car- 
 ried out, but (as I am informed by a Venetian 
 lately arrived in India, who knew not with 
 whom he was speaking) it is universally be- 
 lieved, both by the populace and the officers of 
 the law and of the Inquisition, that I suffered 
 death, as was designed. 
 
 This, therefore, was the manner in whicli the 
 deed was accomplished : My friends were not 
 idle while I lay in prison before my condemna- 
 tion, for they knew of my arrest, and Cardinal 
 Bembo was informed of what the Inquisitor 
 was plotting against me. He therefore ap- 
 peared in my behalf at the trial and labored 
 exceedingly for me, but could effect nothing. 
 All this was freely discussed one evening at 
 Titian's garden, all present being strongly in 
 my favor excepting the poet Aretino. There- 
 fore, after he and all others of the company had 
 taken gondolas for home, Sansovino, Titian, and 
 Bembo began to plot for my rescue. As Titian 
 was then painting one of his great frescoes in 
 the Ducal Palace, he passed often in and out,
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 311 
 
 and his gondola and gondoliers were well 
 known to the guards of the palace. Sansovino 
 also, in his character of architect to the govern- 
 ment, was also well known, and had access to 
 every part of the palace ; while Bembo, as 
 keeper of the library, was frequently seen com- 
 ing and going. Therefore it was an easy mat- 
 ter for any of the three to enter or leave the 
 building at will, or to penetrate to any part of 
 it so far as the Bridge of Sighs, which connect- 
 ed it with the prisons on the other side of the 
 canal. But to pass that bridge and enter the 
 cells of the condemned was another matter, 
 strict watch being kept upon the prisoners, and 
 this vigilance being increased as the time ap- 
 proached for their execution. Nevertheless, 
 Sansovino managed to get a permit from the 
 superintendent of the prison to visit it for the 
 purpose of observing what repairs might be 
 necessary. This he did several times, so that 
 the two jailers who relieved each other's watch 
 became accustomed to seeing him taking meas- 
 urements and examining the locks and suggest- 
 ing better contrivances for the safe-keeping of 
 the prisoners. In this way he took a wax 
 mould of the lock to my cell, and himself made
 
 312 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 a key to fit it for he was very expert in iron 
 work, and had a forge in his own apartments, 
 where he made knockers and such small objects 
 but he took care not to excite suspicion by be- 
 traying any acquaintance with me or desire to 
 see me. Indeed, I had thought myself desert- 
 ed of my friends, for none came to me but you, 
 who were permitted to take farewell of me in 
 the presence of the jailer. Only the priest who 
 was appointed to minister spiritual consolation 
 was allowed to remain with me the last night. 
 But Cardinal Bembo effected that Pomponio, the 
 oldest son of Titian, a priest indeed, but a devil 
 for daring and adventure, should be appointed 
 to this office. Wild as he was, he had a kindly 
 heart, and to him principally I owe my safety. 
 He came to me also before the last night and 
 told me to be of good courage, for my rescue 
 was in preparation. 
 
 I was to be strangled at daybreak and my 
 body delivered to the agents of the Inquisition 
 to be publicly burned ; but my three friends, 
 Titian, Bembo, and SaDsovino, so bribed not 
 only the executioner, but all others who had a 
 right to see to the carrying out of the sentence, 
 that their duty was most carelessly done, and
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 313 
 
 yet none of these men suspected that I had 
 gotten clean off, but only that certain rigors of 
 the sentence were omitted. The executioner was 
 told that I had swallowed poison and died that 
 night, and as my body was to be publicly 
 burned, he felt that even if not actually dead I 
 soon would be, and he was persuaded byPom- 
 ponio by a large gift of money to leave my body 
 un violated by the strangler's cord. Cardinal 
 Bembo had obtained, for the sake of my fam- 
 ily, the grace that my corpse should not be 
 roughly handled, but should be borne from my 
 cell to my funeral pyre in an open coffin, and 
 should be burned without being taken there- 
 from. This coffin was sent to my cell on the 
 eve of my execution, and was carefully exam- 
 ined by the jailers ; but as it was simply a lid- 
 less coffin with nothing therein, it excited no sus- 
 picions. But when Pomponio came, had he 
 been properly searched much might have been 
 discovered and all spoiled, for he wore under 
 his priest's gown a robe of Sansovino's with a 
 hood, and, most dangerous evidence of all, had it 
 been found upon him, a mask which Sansovino 
 (who was most expert in modelling) had fash- 
 ioned in wax, and which reproduced my fea-
 
 314 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 tures to the very life, or rather death, for the 
 complexion had the pallor of a corpse. Being 
 arrived with these accessories, as soon as we 
 were unobserved he proceeded to construct an 
 effigy with one of my sheets and the stuffing of 
 my mattress, which he dressed in the sanbenito, 
 or yellow shroud which had been sent by the 
 Inquisition, and in which victims were burned. 
 We fastened the mask under the yellow cap, 
 and with its closed eyes and real hair and 
 beard, it had a most natural effect ; and then 
 we laid it on the bed, adding the waxen hands 
 and bare feet which Sansovino had not neglect- 
 ed to send. Then with all speed I put on the 
 hooded garment of the architect, and with the 
 false key let myself out of my own cell and 
 passed into a cell that was not occupied, where 
 I pretended to be busied with some drawing 
 which Sansovino had left there that morning. 
 The jailer going his rounds looked first through 
 the wicket into my cell, and seeing me, as he 
 supposed, stretched on my bed, the door safely 
 locked, and the priest on his knees, next came 
 to the open door of the cell where I sat, and 
 was surprised to see the architect there. Never- 
 theless, imagining that the other jailer had let
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 315 
 
 me in during his watch, as I handed him the 
 architect's passport, my face shrouded in the 
 hood and my figure sufficiently resembling that 
 of Sansovino, he suspected nothing and oblig- 
 ingly let me out. This was the crucial mo- 
 ment ; but my peril was not over, for I had to 
 pass across the Bridge of Sighs and through the 
 Ducal Palace. Here, indeed, I knew that Titian 
 awaited me, and indeed his was one of the first 
 figures that 1 saw as I entered the palace. But 
 so eminent a man could not stand in a public 
 place long without attracting attention, and he 
 was surrounded by a group of men, of whom he 
 had been vainly striving to rid himself. Not 
 daring to approach, I stood aloof, but the in- 
 stant that Titian saw me he exclaimed : " Ah, 
 there is Sansovino ! I must have him to dinner 
 with me to-night," and with scant ceremony to 
 the others, he thrust his arm through mine and 
 hurried me through the halls and down the 
 Giant's Staircase. Yet still we were not safe, 
 for as we went we were spied by Aretino, who 
 fell a-gaping with wonder, crying that he had 
 just come from the library, where he had left 
 Sansovino, yet here he was. Titian tried to 
 push by him, but he stuck to him, saying that
 
 310 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 since it was his good fortune to have found him, 
 he was minded to go home with him and listen 
 to the playing of his lovely daughter. In this 
 crisis Bembo came to our aid, for he had sta- 
 tioned himself between the two columns of the 
 Piazzetta to watch, and seeing the plight we 
 were in, he rushed forward and, affecting a 
 great fondness for Aretino, whom, however, he 
 could not abide, he begged him to come to his 
 rooms and read his last comedy to a company of 
 literati there assembled. And Aretino, greatly 
 flattered, allowed himself to be led off. Despite 
 the danger 1 was in, I laughed when I thought 
 of the joke, and I wondered whether Bembo 
 found others to listen with him to the play ; and 
 then for the first time I knew how much he 
 loved me, since he was willing to submit to 
 such penance for my sake. At the Riva we 
 found Titian's gondola in waiting with Orazio 
 and a worthy young gentleman of the Cadore 
 country, betrothed to Lavinia for Titian would 
 not trust to the silence of his servants and 
 these young men rowed us out to Chioggia, 
 where was a ship setting sail for Constanti- 
 nople, in which, being supplied with funds 
 by my friends, I took passage, calling down
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 317 
 
 the blessings of Heaven on the heads of my 
 preservers. 
 
 They promised to inform yon of my rescue, 
 but urged me not to write either to you or them, 
 as by so doing I might endanger all their lives. 
 Wherefore for a time I kept silence. But at 
 Constantinople, whom should I meet but my 
 pupil, Hieronyrrms Chrysolarus, who was over- 
 joyed to see me safe, and fell upon his knees, 
 begging me to forgive his desertion, which I 
 .readily did, having compassion on the weak- 
 ness of flesh, and knowing in what peril he 
 stood. Moreover, he has amply retrieved his 
 fault, for no son could be more loving and dute- 
 ous than he. I abode with him many months 
 in Constantinople, and from thence, being con- 
 sumed with such hunger of heart to lay eyes 
 on you that I could in no wise restrain myself, 
 I wrote you under an assumed name, but in 
 such guise that I thought you must under- 
 stand, begging you to .join me. Not daring to 
 compromise my dear friends in Venice by send- 
 ing the letter to them, I sent it to Genoa, in 
 care of Francesco de Rovere, of the family of 
 Pope Julian. For I argued that as that pontiff 
 had befriended me on account of service done
 
 318 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 him in reference to the Borgia poison, you 
 might have sought the patronage of his fam- 
 ily, and if not, for the sake of that service they 
 might be minded to find you and deliver the 
 letter. But having waited a whole year and 
 no answer coming from you, I began to despair 
 of the letter having reached you ; and seeing 
 myself observed in the street one day, and fol- 
 lowed by a stranger habited like a Venetian, I 
 feared lest the letter might have fallen into the 
 hands of my enemies and that I was spied upon. 
 Therefore, though I had shaken off this fol- 
 lower, I was ill at ease, and Chrysolarus like- 
 wise, so that we travelled together to India, 
 passing through many strange lands, and 
 finally settled in this place, which we judged 
 remote enough to free us from all danger. 
 Situate on a spur of the Himalaya, the air is 
 salubrious, and we are accommodated in a well- 
 ordered house with native servants, and have 
 built up a reputation as wise physicians, so 
 that we have an extended practice, Chrysolarus 
 travelling widely at the call of the wealthy 
 princes and nabobs. But I bide quietly, devot- 
 ing myself to my experiments, and happy there- 
 in, excepting that I long for you, my dear son ;
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 319 
 
 wherefore I beseech of you that you so arrange 
 your affairs that you come out to me, whether 
 for a longer or a shorter time, and if you are in 
 need of money to defray the expense of the 
 journey, and will write me how it can reach 
 you, I will send it to you. The messenger 
 whereby I send this is most trusty. He is a 
 Venetian sailor who fell sick of a fever, and was 
 left in Bombay to die ; but Chrysolarus chanc- 
 ing to be in the city at the time, heard of his 
 case, and caused him to be brought to our home 
 in a palanquin, where I nursed him back to 
 health ; for which service he has sworn to seek 
 out your whereabouts and deliver into your 
 hands this letter, and failing in that, to give it 
 most secretly to Orazio Vecelli. And so I trust 
 it to his gratitude and sagacity and rest my 
 vindication with time, which trieth every man's 
 work, praying God as I did the night I was con- 
 demned to die : 
 
 " Ab hoste maligno defende me, 
 In hora mortis mcse voca me, 
 Ut cum sanctis suis laudem te, 
 In ssecula saeculorum. Amen." 
 
 And for thee, dear son, I leave my benedic-
 
 320 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 tion, though our day has been stormy. Noc- 
 tern quietam concedet Dominum. 
 
 Your loving father, 
 
 GIOVANNI ZANELLI. 
 
 To Angelo's mind all problems were solved, 
 all barriers swept away ; but not so for the con- 
 tessa. When he returned and told her the se- 
 cret which her discerning eyes had long ago 
 discovered, and announced his intention to set 
 out upon another quest, her heart was torn with 
 anguish. She could not crush his hopes that 
 evening, but after he had kissed her good-night 
 she took her Cousin Faustina's letter and the 
 missing leaves which had been cut from the 
 alchemist's diary down to his laboratory, where 
 Van was sitting, and, patiently translating them 
 for him, submitted the question of Dr. Zanellr s 
 sanity to his judgment. 
 
 She was not prepared for the result ; for Van 
 first sprang from his chair and excitedly paced 
 the room ; then as she concluded with the 
 alchemist's description of his discovery of the 
 antidote for the plague, he fairly shouted : 
 
 " Maniac ! All who suspected him, perse- 
 cuted him, tried and condemned him were
 
 SHREDS AND PATCHES. 321 
 
 maniacs. He was the only sane physician of 
 his time ; he was a martyr to science, a tremen- 
 dous genius. Do you know what he did ? He 
 anticipated the discoveries of modern bacteriol- 
 ogy. He did not quite understand the entire 
 import of his discovery ; but if they had not 
 meddled v/ifch him, if they had left him in peace 
 in this laboratory, instead of hounding him to 
 ignominy and death, he would have saved the 
 city, and the latest discovery of modern science 
 would have been announced three centuries ago. ' ' 
 
 The contessa flitted from the room to the bal- 
 cony, where her son was looking far out toward 
 the Adriatic. Her heart was full of remorse 
 for her part in the drama, which she had acted 
 in all good faith, and she confessed all unre- 
 servedly. 
 
 " Can you forgive me ? Will she forgive 
 me ?" she asked anxiously as Angelo drew her 
 closely to him. 
 
 " If she loves me, there will be nothing to for- 
 give," he replied. " She will understand that 
 when she thought you were building an im- 
 penetrable wall between us you were in real- 
 ity undermining the crumbling stones which 
 blocked the doorway to our happiness."
 
 322 WITCH WINNIE IN VENICE. 
 
 Did she love him, and did Angelo find his 
 Nellie Zanelli ? 'Tis a question the author 
 hopes to answer some day ; but she must bid 
 her reader farewell for the present, for this 
 second quest of Angelo's has nothing to do 
 with the story of the old alchemist or of Witch 
 Winnie in Venice. 
 
 THE END.
 
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 Inglish Literature and the College Presi- 
 dent in the same company. 
 
 Molly Brown's Sophomore 
 Days 
 
 What is more delightful than a re- 
 union of college girls after the summer 
 vacation? Certainly nothing that pre- 
 cedes it in their experience at least, if all class-mates are as 
 happy together as the Wellington girls of this story. Among 
 Molly's interesting friends of the second year is a young 
 Japanese girl, who ingratiates her "humbly" self into every- 
 body's affections. 
 
 Molly Brown's Junior Days 
 
 Financial stumbling blocks are not the only thing that hin- 
 der the ease and increase the strength of college girls. Their 
 troubles and their triumphs are their own, often peculiar to their 
 environment. How Wellington students meet the experiences 
 outside the class-rooms is worth the doing, the telling and the 
 reading. 
 
 . Mo//y Brown's Senior Days 
 
 This book tells of another year of glad college life, bringing the 
 girls to the days of diplomas and farewells, and introducing 
 new friends to complicate old friendships. 
 
 Molly Brown's Post Graduate Days 
 
 "Book I" of this volume is devoted to incidents that hap- 
 pen in Molly's Kentucky home, and "Book II" is filled with the 
 interests pertaining to Wellington College and the reunions of a 
 / post graduate year. 
 
 Molly Brown's Orchard Home 
 
 Molly's romance culminates in Paris the Paris of art, of 
 music, of light-hearted gaiety after a glad, sad, mad year for 
 Molly and her friends. 
 
 If you do not know Molly Brown of Kentucky, you are miss- 
 ing an opportunity to become acquainted with, the most en- 
 chailtinc cirl in collece flr.tirm. 
 
 HURST & COMPANY, Publishers, NEW YORK
 
 HURST & COMPANY'S BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 REX KINGDON SERIES 
 
 By GORDON BRADDOCK 
 
 Cloth Bound. Illustrated. 
 
 Rex Kingdon of Ridgewood 
 High 
 
 A new boy moves into town. Who is 
 he? What can he do? Will he make 
 one of the school teams? Is his friend- 
 ship worth having? These are the 
 o^ieries of the Ridgewood High Students. 
 The story is the answer. 
 
 Rex Kingdon in the North 
 Woods 
 
 Ridgewood friends establish a camp fire in 
 there mystery, jealousy, and rivalry enter 
 fire their interest and finally cement their 
 
 RIDGEWOOD HIGH 
 
 CORDQJCBRADDOCK 
 
 Rex and some of his 
 the North Woods, and 
 to menace their safety, 
 friendship. 
 
 Rex Kingdon at Walcott Hall 
 
 Lively boarding school experiences make this the "best yet" 
 of the Rex Kingdon series. 
 
 Rex Kingdon Behind the Bat 
 
 The title tells you what this story is; it is a rattling good 
 story about baseball. Boys will like it. 
 
 Gordon Braddock knows what Boys want and how to write 
 it. These stories make the best reading you can procure. 
 
 HURST & COMPANY, Publishers, NEW YORK
 
 HURST & COMPANY'S BOOKS FOR YOUNQ PEOPLE 
 
 MOTOR MAIDS SERIES 
 
 j By KATHARINE STOKES 
 
 Cloth Bound. Illustrated. 
 
 SCHOOLDAYS 
 
 RATHERINE. STOKES 
 
 THE MOTOR 
 DAYS 
 
 MAIDS' SCHOOL 
 
 Billie Campbell was just the type of ? 
 a straightforward, athletic girl to be suc-( 
 cesful as a practical Motor Maid. Shell 
 took her car, as she did her class-mates, 
 to her heart, and many a grand good tim 
 did they have all together. The road over 
 which she ran her red machine had many 
 an unexpected turning. 
 
 THE MOTOR MAIDS BY PALM 
 AND PINE 
 
 Wherever the Motor Maids went there 
 were lively times, for these were com- 
 panionable girls who looked upon the 
 world as a vastly interesting place full 
 of unique adventures. 
 
 THE MOTOR MAIDS ACROSS THE CONTINENT 
 
 It is always interesting to travel, and it is wonderfully en- 
 tertaining to see old scenes through fresh eyes. It is that 
 privilege, therefore, that makes it worth while to join the 
 Motor Maids in their first 'cross-country run. 
 
 THE MOTOR MAIDS BY ROSE, SHAMROCK AND 
 THISTLE 
 
 South and West had the Motor Maids motored, nor could their 
 education by travel have been more wisely begun. But now a 
 speaking acquaintance with their own country enriched their 
 anticipation of an introduction to the British Isles. How they 
 made their polite American bow and how they were received 
 on the other side is a tale of interest and inspiration. 
 
 THE MOTOR MAIDS IN FAIR JAPAN 
 
 In a picturesque villa among picturesque surroundings the 
 Motor Maids spend a happy vacation. The charm of Japan, her 
 cherry blossoms, her temples, her quaint customs^ her polite 
 people, is reflected in all their delightful experiences. 
 
 THE MOTOR MAIDS AT SUNRISE CAMP 
 
 Most interesting of all interesting events recorded about the 
 Motor Maids are these relating to their summer in a mountain 
 camp. The new friends introduced in this book add the final 
 touch of romance. 
 
 Charmingly written books which will delight all girls who 
 fire fond of out-door life and most girls are. The trips taken by 
 these Motor Maids would envy any girl, yet you can have 
 all the pleasant experiences by reading the stories. 
 
 HURST & COMPANY, Publishers, NEW YORK
 
 HURST & COMPANY'S BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE 
 
 GIRL AVIATORS SERIES 
 
 By MARGARET BURNHAM 
 
 GIRL AVIATORS' 
 
 AND THE 
 
 PHANTOM AIRSHIP 
 
 MARGARET BUHNHAM 
 X / / S / x/ 
 
 Cloth. Illustrated. 
 
 The Girl Aviators and the 
 Phantom Airship 
 
 Roy Prescott was fortunate in having a 
 sister so clever and devoted to him and 
 his interests that they would share work 
 and play with mutual pleasure and to 
 mutual advantage. This proved especi- 
 ally true in relation to the manufacture 
 and manipulation of their aeroplane, and 
 Peggy' won well deserved fame for her 
 skill and good sense as an aviator. There 
 were many stumbling-blocks in their ter- 
 restial path, but they soared above them 
 all to ultimate success. 
 
 The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings 
 
 That there is a peculiar fascination about aviation that wins 
 and holds girls enthusiasts as well as boys is proved by this 
 tale. On golden wings the girl aviators rose for many an ex- 
 citing flight, and met strange and unexpected experiences. 
 
 The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise 
 
 To most girls a coaching or yachting trip is an adventure. 
 How much more perilous an adventure a "sky cruise" might be 
 is suggested by the title and proved by the story itself. 
 
 The Girl Aviators 9 Motor Butterfly 
 
 The delicacy of flight suggested by the word "butterfly," the 
 mechanical power implied by "motor," the ability to control 
 assured in the title "aviator," all combined with the personality 
 and enthusiasm of girls themselves, make this story one for 
 any girl or other reader "to go cra/y over." 
 
 Aviation is not confined to the sterner sex as has been shown 
 by the flights made by Harriet Quimby :ma other daring young 
 women. Girls who are fond of adventure will thoroughly 
 enjoy reading these books, wjiich are wholesome and free 
 from sensationalism. 
 
 HURST & COMPANY, Publishers, NEW YORK
 
 Prudy 
 Books 
 
 A handsome little series of books by 
 that popular writer of books for the little 
 folks SOPHIE MAY. This authoress 
 knows how to please the young people 
 and countless numbers of these stories 
 have been sold. We issue them at a 
 popular price. 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY. Sophie May 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE. Sophie May 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY'S COUSIN GRACE. Sophie May 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY'S DOTTY DIMPLE. Sophie May 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY'S SISTER SUSY. Sophie May 
 
 LITTLE PRUDY'S STORY BOOK. Sophie May 
 
 Ask us to send you our complete cat- 
 alogue. 
 
 HURST CO., Publishers, NEW YOfiK
 
 A 000128384 5
 
 r