The
entrance hall and the wide staircase leading to the next story were
very imposing, the rooms were large, and the walls and high ceilings
covered with elaborate carvings and frescoes; and when Stevie looked
out of the windows or the front door lo! instead of an ordinary street
with paved sidewalks, there were the blue shining waters of the lagoon,
and quaint-shaped gondolas floating at the door-step or gliding swiftly
and gracefully by.
The children thought it great fun to go sight-seeing in a gondola: they
visited the beautiful old Cathedral of St. Mark, and admired the famous
bronze horses which surmount Sansovino's exquisitely carved gates,
sailed up and down the double curved Grand Canal, walked through the
Ducal Palace and across the narrow, ill-lighted Bridge of Sighs--over
which so many unfortunate prisoners had passed never to return--and
peeped into the dark, dismal prison on the other side of the canal.
It was all very novel and interesting, but Stevie told Mehitabel, in
confidence, that he would rather, any day, listen to her reminiscences
of her long-ago school days in her little New England village home, or,
better still, to her stories of George Washington, and the other great
spirits of the Revolutionary period, and of Abraham Lincoln and the men
of his time.
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