The door to the church opened and a little party came out into the campo. These ladies and gentlemen were visitors to the city of Venice who had been looking at the interior of the church, its altars and objects of interest, and now that they had got out of it, they were inclined to be talkative and filled up the water-lapped silence of the place with loud, cheerful conversation. They were excessively pleased with the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. They thought the façades of the houses very magnificent – they could not praise them highly enough. But the sad decay, which buildings, bridges and church all displayed, seemed to charm them even more. They were Englishmen and, to them, the decline of other nations was the most natural thing in the world. They belonged to a race blessed with so sensitive an appreciation of its own talents (and so doubtful an opinion of any body else’s) that they would not have been at all surprized to learn that the Venetians themselves had been entirely ignorant of the merits of their own city – until Englishmen had come to tell them it was delightful.

One lady, having got to the end of her raptures, began to speak of the weather to the other lady.

“You know, it is a very odd thing, my dear, but when we were in the church, while you and Mr Strange were looking at the pictures, I just popped my head out of the door and I thought then that it was raining and I was very much afraid that you would get wet.”

“No, aunt. See, the stones are perfectly dry. There is not a spot of rain upon them.”

“Well then, my dear, I hope that you are not inconvenienced by this wind. It is a little sharp about the ears. We can always ask Mr Strange and papa to walk a little faster if you do not like it.”

“Thank you, aunt, but I am perfectly comfortable. I like this breeze – I like the smell of the sea – it clears the brain, the senses – every thing. But perhaps, aunt, you do not like it.”

“Oh no, my dear. I never mind any such thing. I am quite hardy. I only think of you.”

“I know you do, aunt,” said the young lady. The young lady was perhaps aware that the sunlight and breeze which shewed Venice to so much advantage, made its canals so blue and its marble so mystically bright, did as much – or almost as much – for her. Nothing could so well draw attention to the translucency of Miss Greysteel’s complexion, as the rapid progression across it of sunlight and shadow. Nothing could be so becoming to her white muslin gown as the breeze which blew it about.

“Ah,” said the aunt, “now papa is showing Mr Strange some new thing or other. Flora, my dear, would not you like to see?”

“I have seen enough. You go, aunt.”