For years Kitty had fought her battles alone, independent and resourceful; and yet here she was, leaning upon the strong will of this remarkable woman, and gratefully, too. It is a pleasant thing to shift responsibility to the shoulders of one we know to be capable of bearing it. "Now, my dear Kitty, we'll just enjoy ourselves to-night, and on our return I shall lay a plan before you, and to-morrow you may submit it to the men. It is as usual a foolish plan, but it will be something of an adventure." "I accept it at once, without knowing what it is." "Kitty Killigrew," mused La Signorina. "The name is as pretty as you are. Pretty Kitty Killigrew; it actually sings." Then she added solemnly: "Never change it. There is no man worth the exchange." Kitty was not wholly sure of this, so she made no response. "What a beautiful palace!" she cried presently, pointing to a house in darkness, not far from the house of Petrarch. It was only the interior of the house that was in darkness. The moon poured broadly upon it. The leaning gondola-posts stood like sleeping sentinels, and the tide murmured over the marble steps. Pompeo, seeing Kitty's gesture and not understanding her words, swung the gondola diagonally across the canal. "No, no, Pompeo!" La Signorina spoke in Italian. "I have told you never to go near that house without express orders. Straight ahead." The gondola at once resumed its former course. Never did Pompeo take a tourist down the Grand Canal that he did not exalt in his best Italian and French the beauties of yonder empty palace. Had he not spent his youth in the service of the family? It was only of late years that Pompeo had become a public gondolier, with his posts in the stand fronting the Hotel de l'Europe. "_A-oel!_ Look out!" he called suddenly. Another gondola scraped alongside and passed on. "Who lives there?" asked Kitty. "Nobody," answered La Signorina. "Though once it was the palace of a great warrior. How picturesque the gondolas look, with their dancing double lights! Those without numbers are private." "The old palace interests me more than the gondolas," declared Kitty. But La Signorina was not to be trapped.