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.  Stevie never tired of these stories.  He knew Mehitabel’s leisure hour, and curling himself up among the cushions on the settee beside her tea table, he would say, with his most engaging smile:  “Now’s just the time for a story, Hitty; don’t you think so?  And please begin right away, won’t you, ’cause, you know, I’ll have to be going to bed pretty soon.”

He knew most of the stories by heart, corrected Miss Higginson if she left out or added anything in the telling, and always joined in when she ended the entertainment with her two stock pieces—­“Barbara Freitchie” and “Paul Revere’s Ride,” which were great favorites with him.  “Oh, how I would like to be a hero!” he said with a sigh, one afternoon, just after they had finished reciting “Paul Revere’s Ride” in fine style.  Presently he added, thoughtfully:  “Do you think, Hitty, that any one could be a hero and not know it?  I suppose Washington and Paul Revere and all those others just knew every time they did anything brave.”

Hitty wore her hair in short gray curls, on each side of her rather severe-looking face, and now they bobbed up and down as, she nodded her head emphatically.  “Of course they did,” she answered, with conviction.  “You see my grandfather fought in the Revolution, so I ought to know.  But,” with an entire change of conversation, “bravery isn’t the only thing in the world for a little boy to think of.  He should try to be nice and polite to everybody; obedient to his mamma and gentle to his sisters; he shouldn’t love to have his own way and go ordering people about.  I don’t think,” with sudden assurance, “you’d have found Washington or Paul Revere or Lincoln behaving that way.”

“Pooh! that’s all you know about it,” cried Stevie, ungratefully, slipping down from his nest among the cushions; he did not relish the personal tone the conversation had taken.  “Didn’t Washington order his troops about?  And anyway, Kate’s just as ‘ordering’ as I am, and you never speak to her about it.”  Then, before the old housekeeper could answer, he ran out of the room.

You see that was Stevie’s great fault; he was a dear, warm-hearted little fellow, but he did love to have his own way, and often this made him very rude and impatient—­what they called “ordering”—­to his sisters, and Hitty and the servants, and even disobedient to his mamma.