That was why late one afternoon (I was painting the sunset glow) just as Loretta reached the edge of the quay on her way home, a young fellow, in white duck with a sash of dark red silk binding and hanging from his waist and a rakish straw hat tipped over his handsome face, shot his gondola alongside mine and leaned over to whisper something in Luigi’s ear.  And that was why the girl in her long black shawl stopped, and why Luigi immediately changed gondolas and made for the quay, and why they all talked together for a moment, the girl flashing and the boy beaming, and that was why, too, they all three disappeared a moment later in the direction of the high rookery where lived the baffled, love-sick Francesco, his anxious father, the much-talked-about mother, and the Rose of the Shipyards.

In a garden where the soil is so rich that a seedling of five—­a mere slip—­blooms into flower before a foolish old painter can exhaust the subjects along the canal, it is not surprising that a love affair reaches its full growth between two suns.  Not since the day she had tumbled into the canal had she gone so headover -heels—­both of them.  Nor did Luigi pull them out.  He helped in the drowning, really.

He was talking to himself when he came back—­a soft light in his eyes, a smile lingering around the corners of his up-turned, grizzled mustache.

“It is good to be young, Signore, is it not?” was all he said, and at once began bundling up my traps.

Before the week was out,—­nay, before the setting of two suns—­every gossip along the Riva—­and they about covered the population—­had become convinced that Loretta was lost to the Quarter.  Unless a wedding ring was to end it all Vittorio would never be so bold in his attentions to Loretta, as to walk home with her nights and wait for her mornings.

Luigi shook his head, but he did not help the gossips solve the problem.  He had had trouble enough already with Vittorio’s father.

“A common wench from the yards, I hear, Luigi!” he had blazed out—­“and you, I understand, brought them together—­you,—­who have been my friend for—­”

“Stop, Borodini!  Not another word!  You are angry, and when you are angry you are stupid.  I carried that girl in my arms when she was a baby!  I have watched over her ever since.  A wench!  Not one of your own daughters has a heart so white.  If Vittorio is so great a coward as to listen to their talk I’ll keep her for his betters.”

All this snapped out of Luigi’s eyes and rolled from under his crisp mustache as he repeated the outbreak to me.  What the end might be neither the Giudecca nor San Giuseppe could decide.  The Borodinis were proud; Vittorio’s father was one of the gondoliers belonging to the palace and always rowed the good Queen Margherita when she came incognito to Venice,—­a post which greatly enhanced his social station.  Vittorio was the only son, and already a member of the traghetto, young as he