Page:A Venetian June (1896).pdf/52

 crude voices and their twanging strings reverberated rather noisily.

Wondering how it must seem to have nerves young enough to sustain such rough treatment, the Colonel abandoned his nieces to their self-inflicted ordeal, and mounted the stairs to his own familiar quarters. And there, as he closed the door behind him, he ceased to speculate upon such ephemeral matters.

He had come up, ostensibly to write some letters, but instead of doing so, he lighted a cigar, and seated himself at the window, watching the swoop of the rain along the hurrying waters of the Canal. The tide was coming in and the wind was with it. One gondola at the ferry was struggling across the current, with difficulty held to its course by the efforts of its straining oarsman. The passengers had taken refuge under the felze, or gondola hood. Impatient of the slow progress of the boat, the Colonel looked down into the hotel-garden directly beneath his windows, which