But Edith insisted that she should get into the boat from the steps, or not at all. "There is no danger," she said. "These Italians are too superstitious. See how they are always closing one hand and pointing down two of its fingers to ward off the evil eye. I am going to show Rafael how foolish all these notions are." The boy looked at her in anger. He had sometimes closed his own hand in the way Edith described, when he met old Beppo, the brown monk from one of the islands in the lagoon; and had often gone out of his way to meet the hunchback, Tonio, because it is well-known in Venice that the sight of a hunchback brings good luck. Now, when he heard Edith speak so contemptuously of his cherished beliefs, he felt a flame of resentment. Standing quietly in his boat, he said, "Signorina, we go not from those landing-steps in my boat." Edith saw that he meant what he said. "I am sorry that I hurt your feelings," she said, with a pretty air of penitence; "but if you will kindly take me from these steps, I will make a gift to the patron saint of the fishermen, if we find a shrine at the Lido." Rafael melted at once. "It is not that I was afraid," he told her, as she stepped into the boat from the unlucky steps, "but I cannot have the ways of my country ridiculed." Then he pushed off from the landing, and the two great columns rose above their heads in stately fashion. Edith looked from the winged lion on the top of one to the crocodile and the figure of St. Theodore on the other. "There are many stone lions in the city," she said, "but I have seen only one crocodile. Why is that?" "The lion is the symbol of St. Mark," replied Rafael, "and must guard the city, because St. Mark is our patron saint. St. Theodore, who stands on the crocodile, was our first patron saint, before the body of St. Mark was brought to Venice and placed in the little church which once stood where you now see the cathedral." "Is it the St. Mark who wrote one of the books of the New Testament?" asked Mrs. Sprague. "Yes, Signora," replied Rafael. "We have been into the cathedral many times," said Edith. "Mother knows every picture and statue inside and out of it." "It is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the whole world," said her mother. "Some one has called it a jewel-box, because it contains so many magnificent gems, precious stones, and golden mosaics; and it seems so to me. Now that I have seen it, I am ready to leave Venice." "Oh, Mother," exclaimed the girl, "we haven't begun to see all that I want to! I must buy some more Venetian glass, and a lantern, and some flags and banners. I mean to make my room at home look like a bit of Venice." Rafael looked pleased. "Our people were making beautiful things in glass two hundred years before Christopher Columbus found his way to your country," he said. He had no wish to seem boastful to these people of a younger nation, so he tried to say it courteously.