But in a few minutes the facchini seized their hand-luggage, and they alighted as at any commonplace railway-station.  But oh! the revelation when they went out upon the platform, up to which, not carriages, but gondolas were drawn, and from which stretched, not a dusty pavement, but the same gold and crimson and purple of sky reflected in the waters at their feet.

“Is it true that we are mortal beings still on the earth, and that we are seeking merely a hotel?” exclaimed Malcom, as they floated on between two skies to the music of lapping oars.  “Madge, you ought to have some poetry to fit this.”

“I know enough verses about Venice,” replied Margery, whose eyes were dancing with joyous excitement, and who was trailing her little hot hand through the cool water, “but nothing fits.  Nothing can fit; for who could ever put into words the beauty of all this?”

By and by they left the Grand Canal, passed through narrower ones, with such high walls on either side that twilight rapidly succeeded the sunset glow; floated beneath the Bridge of Sighs, and were at the steps of their hotel.

The next few days were devoted wholly to drinking in the spirit of Venice.  Mr. Sumner hired gondolas which should be at the service of his party during the month they were to spend there, and morning, noon, and night found them revelling in this delight.  They went to San Marco in early morning and late afternoon; fed the pigeons in the Piazza; ate ice-cream under its Colonnade; went to the Lido, and floated along the Grand Canal beside the music and beneath the moonlight for hours at night, and longed to be there until the morning.

Barbara grew stronger, the color returned to her cheeks, and though she often felt unhappy, she was better able to conceal it.  She began to hope that her secret was safe; that it would never be discovered by any one; that Mr. Sumner would never dream of it.  If only that dreadful suggestion of Malcom’s might be wholly without foundation; and perhaps, after all, it was.  She thought she would surely know when Lucile Sherman should come to Venice, as she would do soon.

At length Mr. Sumner suggested that they begin to study Venetian painting, and that, for it, they should first visit the Accademia delle Belle Arti.  He advised them to read what they could about early Venetian painting.

“You will find,” he said, “that the one strongest characteristic of all the painting that has emanated from Venice is beauty and strength of color, the keynote of which seems to have been struck in the first mosaic decorations of San Marco, more than eight centuries ago.  And how could it be otherwise in a city so flooded with radiance of color and light!”

“I have brought you here,” said he one morning, as they left their gondolas at the steps of the Academy, “for the special study of Carpaccio’s and the Bellinis’ works.

“But,” he added, as they entered the building and stepped into the first room, “I would like you to stop for a few minutes and look at these quaint pictures by the Vivarini, Basaiti, Bissolo, and others of the early Venetian painters.  Here you will notice the first characteristics of the school.  This academy is particularly interesting to students of Venetian art, because it contains few other than Venetian paintings.”