He felt his mind accommodating to the ease of hers with a movement of release.

They spent so much time in the church that when they issued on the Piazza at last it was with amazement to discern that the cloud mass which an hour before had piled ethereal tones of blueness above Frauli, lit cavernously by soundless flashes, had dissolved in rain.
"And I haven't even an umbrella," explained Miss Dassonville with a real dismay.
"But I'll take you home in my gondola," it appeared to him providentially provided for this contingency; "it is here at the Piazzetta." "Oh, have you a gondola, and is it as much of a help as people say?
Mrs.
Merrithew hates walking, but we didn't know if we should like it." They whisked around the corner under the arcade of the ducal palace, and almost before they reached the _traghetto_ the shower was stayed and the sun came out on the lucent water.

Peter allowed Miss Dassonville to give the direction lest she should think it a liberty of him to have noticed and remembered it, but he added something to it that caused her, as they swung out into the canal, to enter an expostulation.
"But this is not the way to the Casa Frolli!" "It's one way; besides, it isn't raining any more, and if you are thinking of taking a gondola you ought to make a trial trip or two, and it's worth seeing how the palace looks from the canal." The rain began again in a little while, whitening the water; the depth of it blackened to the cloud but the surface frothed like quicksilver under the steady patter.

The awning was up and they were safe against a wetting, but Peter saw the girl shiver in the slight chill, and looking at her more attentively he perceived that she might recently have been ill.

The likeness to her mother came out then in spite of her plainness, the hands, the eyes, the pleasant way of smiling; it was that no doubt which had set him on the trail of his old dreams.