At starting, she had observed a covered gondola at rest opposite the house, and saw that some one was watching them from its curtained window.  It was not surprising, for their little pageant was pretty.  But she was surprised when the gondola slipped forward beside her own and became almost entangled with their followers.  For a moment she thought that it might be Mr. Churchill, but a swift, stolen glance showed her that the arm which rested by the window wore a military sleeve.

“Some officer who knows the family,” she concluded.  They knew a good many officers.

The entanglement was but momentary, and might have been accidental, the person inside having evidently given orders to let them pass.  Leaning on his oar against the out-flowing tide, the gondolier took his hat off and bowed lowly, smiling at the babe.

“E riverita, Madama Innocenza!” he said.

Aurora gave him a kind glance.  “But you will be more innocent still in a few minutes,” she said to the infant.

They reached the landing, and walked across the piazza to Saint Mark’s, and entered the baptistery.  A good many people gathered about the door during the ceremony, and among them Aurora was aware of a military officer who stood leaning against the grating.  She did not look at him, or she would have known that his eyes were fixed on her alone.

When, after holding the infant at the font, and giving it a string of names as long as a rosary, she turned to restore it to its nurse, and bent to kiss its rosy face as she released it, the officer smiled, gazing earnestly at her downcast eyes.  He saw her lips move in a whisper.

She was repeating the gondolier’s salutation:  “E riverita, Madama Innocenza!”

As they went out, her veil brushed the gold-banded sleeve, and she heard a faint sigh from the wearer.  It required a force not to look at him, not to show that she was conscious of his presence and pleased by it.  Any one who wore a soldier’s dress touched her heart, from general down to orderly.

Home through the sunshine, in through the shaded court, up the stair with its painted lords and ladies looking down upon them from the painted arcade.

Mrs. Lindsay came out to the stair to receive them, and to embrace her infant before dismissing it to the nursery.

Mr. Churchill had joined them at Saint Mark’s, and returned with them, sitting beside Aurora at breakfast.  Both ignored the serenade as if it had never been.

“My cousin Edith and Mrs. Graham arrived last evening,” he said.  “They will stop here a week or two before returning to England.”

“Oh, I should like to see them!” Aurora said cordially.  “Tell me where they are, and I will leave a card today.  I am sure, too, that Mrs. Lindsay will wish to make their acquaintance.”

The breakfast ended with coffee in the beautiful garden the dining-room windows looked into; then one by one the company departed.  Mr. Churchill lingered a few minutes after the others, then went, seeing no hope of an interview with Aurora.