I should have felt the same when I was a boy.

Still, to picture the poor signora as a traitoress, in the pay of that villain Mocenigo, is too absurd.

I had the greatest difficulty in keeping my gravity when he was unfolding his story.

But he is an excellent lad, nevertheless.

A true, honest, brave lad, with a little of the bluffness that they say all his nation possess, but with a heart of gold, unless I am greatly mistaken." At seven o'clock, Francis was just getting into his gondola to go round again to Signor Polani's, when another gondola came along the canal at the top of its speed, and he recognized at once the badge of the Giustiniani.