We did not even see all the show places. The Doges' Palace spread its nets for Naomi and me in vain; but I cannot say how many times we found our way to the statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni on horseback in the Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and more than twice did we cross to San Giorgio Maggiore to be taken round the choir stalls by a courtly priest and hear him explain in fascinating broken English the carved scenes in the crowded life of St. Bernard; and more than twice did we glide on from San Giorgio to the Redentore, where a tall monk with a long grey beard unveiled one after the other the treasured paintings of the sacristy, and set us, with all the solicitude of an enthusiast, in the best light for each, enlarging earnestly, in easy, companionable Latin, on their beauties. A simple, kindly creature, who surely will be seated high in heaven after a life thus spent. Meeting some English friends one day, we heard that the angel with a flaming sword no longer stood at the gate of the Edens' garden, but instead, the family being away, their compatriots were admitted on the presentation of a visiting card, and off we voyaged thither, across the canal della Giudecca into the narrow rio whence this paradise is gained: a tangled tropical place, lacking no charm but undulation. One walks on the flat between flowers and fruit along paths that seem never-ending, beneath a sun whose beams carry a fragrance of their own to add to that of the vegetation. The south-west boundary is the still and magical lagoon. Here we loitered careless as man in his first state, while the lizards darted between our feet, flashing in and out of the beds and the stone-work by thousands. That is the ultimate impression conveyed by this Venetian garden--lizards. Large lizards and small, green and yellow, swift as arrows on the wing, and stopping as suddenly as arrows in the target, bright-eyed, wary, daring, silent as shadows, clear and radiant as jewels. Lizards. Oranges and peaches, figs and nectarines may grow here like weeds; but it remains in the mind a garden of lizards. Oft the days when we did not cross to Venice we would have tea either at the casino or in our hotel, watching the steamers empty and fill, and the arrival or departure of that prince in exile, Don Carlos, Duke of Madrid, whose habit it was every afternoon to visit the Lido in his motor launch with the ensign of Spain, accompanied, like a figure in the _Arabian Nights_, by a lady, a huge dog, and a black page. Tall and massive and bearded, I see him still, as he returned to his boat, pausing to open his purse and distribute alms, as a prince should, to all the beggars of the quay. Usually in the evening we returned to Venice again to hear the music and eat an ice and recognise our countrymen. For Venice between eight and ten is concentrated into so small a space that it becomes a mere annexe of Piccadilly and Broadway.