"A mask is of little consequence in a bargain provided the money be forthcoming. We are always in the Carnival at Venice; and he who would buy, or he who would sell, has the same right to hide his face as to hide his thoughts. What hast thou in the way of forbidden liquors, Stefano, that my companion may not lose the night in idle words?" "Per Diana! Master Gino, thou puttest thy questions with little ceremony. The hold of the felucca is empty, as thou mayest see by stepping to the hatches; and as for any liquor, we are perishing for a drop to warm the blood." "And so far from coming to seek it here," said Annina, "we should have done better to have gone into the cathedral, and said an Ave for thy safe voyage home. And now that our wit is spent, we will quit thee, friend Stefano, for some other less skilful in answers." "Cospetto! thou knowest not what thou sayest," whispered Gino, when he found that the wary Annina was not disposed to remain. "The man never enters the meanest creek in Italy, without having something useful secreted in the felucca on his own account. One purchase of him would settle the question between the quality of thy father's wines and those of Battista. There is not a gondolier in Venice but will resort to thy shop if the intercourse with this fellow can be fairly settled." Annina hesitated; long practised in the small, but secret exceedingly hazardous commerce which her father, notwithstanding the vigilance and severity of the Venetian police, had thus far successfully driven, she neither liked to risk an exposure of her views to an utter stranger, nor to abandon a bargain that promised to be lucrative. That Gino trifled with her as to his true errand needed no confirmation, since a servant of the Duke of Sant' Agata was not likely to need a disguise to search a priest; but she knew his zeal for her personal welfare too well to distrust his faith in a matter that concerned her own safety. "If thou distrust that any here are the spies of the authorities," she observed to the padrone, with a manner that readily betrayed her wishes, "it will be in Gino's power to undeceive thee. Thou wilt testify, Gino, that I am not to be suspected of treachery in an affair like this." "Leave me to put a word into the private ear of the Calabrian," said the gondolier, significantly.--"Stefano Milano, if thou love me," he continued, when they were a little apart, "keep the girl in parley, and treat with her fairly for thy adventure." "Shall I sell the vintage of Don Camillo, or that of the Viceroy of Sicily, caro? There is as much wine of each on board the Bella Sorrentina, as would float the fleet of the Republic." "If, in truth, thou art dry, then feign that thou hast it, and differ in thy prices. Entertain her but a minute with fair words, while I can get unseen into my gondola; and then, for the sake of an old and tried friend, put her tenderly on the quay, in the best manner thou art able."