The arbour and the grass and the street-car track ended sharply and all together at a raised wooden walk that led across the sand to a pavilion hanging over the Adriatic, and here we sat and watched other Venetians disporting themselves in the water below. They were glorious creatures, and they disported themselves nobly, keeping so well in view of the pavilion and such a steady eye upon the spectators that poppa had an impulsive desire to feed them with macaroons. He decided not to; you never could tell, he said, what might be considered a liberty by foreigners; but he had a hard struggle with the temptation, the aquatic accomplishments we saw were so deserving of reward. I had the misfortune to lose a little pink rose overboard, as it were, and Dicky looked seriously annoyed when an amphibious young Venetian caught it between his lips. I don't know why; he was one of the most attractive on view, but I have often noticed Turkish tendencies in Dicky where his country-women are concerned. We came away almost immediately after, so that rose will bloom in my memory, until I forget about it, among romances that might have been. Strolling back, we bought a Venetian secret for a sou or two, a beautiful little secret, I wonder who first found it out. A picturesque and fishy smelling person in a soft felt hat sold it to us--a pair of tiny dainty dried sea-horses, "_mere_" and "_pere_" he called them. And there, all in the curving poise of their little heads and the twist of their little tails, was revealed half the art of Venice, and we saw how the first glass worker came to be told to make a sea green dragon climbing over an amber yellow bowl, and where the gondola borrowed its grace. They moved us to unanimous enthusiasm, and we utterly refused to let Dicky put one in his button-hole.