Pleasant days, full of incident and enjoyment, filled with new impressions to Millicent, and freighted with sunlight and merriment to all the party. No thought of the weather lent the anxious uncertainty to plans which so often to us in the East takes half the enjoyment from anticipation. From May to November in this favored land the blue of the sky is unclouded, save by gossamer white drifts of vapor, massed into soft shapes and mystic outlines. The sky smiles from spring to laughing summer, and the land lies steeped in sunshine through the late autumn. The wide white beach, with its row of bathing-houses and little tents, was very attractive to Millicent. She sometimes sat in the warm sand for hours, chatting with Barbara or making friends with the bare-legged children, the tireless architects in sand. Finally, donning their bathing-suits, they ran, hand in hand, over the dry sands, across the wet space which the last wave had darkened, through the white fringe of the sea, into the cool green billows. The last day of their visit had come, and the morrow would see them on their way back to San Rosario. Millicent and Barbara had prolonged their sea dip beyond their usual wont. Never before had the water seemed so bracing and delicious. As there were twenty or thirty bathers to keep her company, Millicent lingered among the breakers, while Barbara regained the shore. She swam leisurely about, displacing the clear water with her white arms and pretty, small feet. She suddenly became aware that a swimmer was gaining on her from behind, and her stroke instinctively quickened. Millicent swam as only the women of Venice can swim; and the race between her and her unseen pursuer bade fair to be hotly contested. With head high lifted from the waves which circled caressingly about the smooth round throat, knotting the tendril curls at the nape of the neck, the girl kept steadily on her course without turning her head to see who might be so audacious as to follow her. Strong as were her strokes, she slowly lost ground; and finally the water about her rippled with the strokes of the man who was gaining. Soon he had caught up with her, and side by side they swam for a space. Then the victor spoke in a voice well known to her, and the girl answered him with a laugh which rang out fresh and crisp as the sound of the wavelets. Then she turned her head and looked full at him as he moved by her side, strong and graceful as a young merman. "So, my nymph, you are at home in Father Neptune’s arms as well as in the embrace of the great tree. Which is your native element, earth, air, or water?" "I am amphibious." "And which of your three elemental homes do you like the best?" "When I am dancing, the air; when I am walking, dear Mother Earth; and when I swim, the sea." "When I paint you, it will be as I see you now, triumphing over the waves as our great mother, Aphrodite, triumphed over them before you."