[36] The ducat was the great money of Venice, as the florin was of Florence, and bears in its name a proof of the more aristocratic government of the former city. The first gold ducats were coined by the Doge John Dandolo in 1280, and are inscribed I0. DANDVL. DVX. A DAUGHTER OF THE PURITANS. Rose Standish Howson—that was her name, and very proud she was of it. Back of the _Mayflower_, she knew little about her ancestors; but certain it was that in that well-filled vessel one of her forefathers had come to America, and, marrying a distant connection of the veritable Standish family, had handed this name down to all succeeding generations. Rose boasted, so far as it is proper for a well-bred New England girl to boast, that, however it might have been outside of her own country, here at least her lineage was most democratically noble; she belonged—and could prove it, too, out of a little book compiled by her grandfather—thoroughly to the old Puritan race. In all her books the name was written in full—Rose Standish Howson; and it was her unfailing source of regret that her only brother had not been called Miles. John Howson laughed good-naturedly at his sister’s foible, but was really quite as proud as she, though in a more passive way. Their home was not in Boston. Let this important fact receive our prompt attention. But, since it could not be there, it was in the next best place—an old academic town; in which New England State matters little to our story. There for thirty years Rose Howson’s father had been the academy’s honored principal. His wife had died young, leaving only this son and daughter. John fitted for Harvard at the academy; Rose went steadily through grammar-school and high-school in her native place, then went to Boston with hopes of at least a two years’ added course of study there. It resolved itself into one brilliant winter and spring of hard work and exhausting pleasure, symphony concerts, Shakspere clubs, Parker Fraternity lectures, abstruse reading, and keenly exciting conversation; one merry June, one gay class-day, one delightful commencement, when Dr. Howson came to Cambridge to meet old pupils and friends, and see his son bear off the highest honors; then they went home for vacation, and before it was over Dr. Howson sickened and died.