These mornings in the gondola continued until she
was ten years old. Sometimes it was a melon held
high in the air that tempted her; or a basket of figs,
or some huge bunches of grapes; or a roll and a
broiled fish from a passing cook-boat: but the bait
always sufficed. With a little cry of joy the beads
would be dropped, or the neighbor's child passed to
another or whatever else occupied her busy head
and small hands, and away she would run to the water
steps and hold out her arms until Luigi rowed over
and lifted her in. She had changed, of course, in
these five years, and was still changing, but only as
an expanding bud changes. The eyes were the same
and so were the teeth--if any had dropped out, newer
and better ones had taken their places; the hair
though was richer, fuller, longer, more like coils of
liquid jet, with a blue sheen where the sky lights
touched its folds. The tight, trim little figure, too,
had loosened out in certain places--especially about
the chest and hips. Before many years she would
flower into the purest type of the Venetian--the most
beautiful woman the world knows.

At sixteen she burst into bloom.

I have never seen a black tulip, not a real velvet-
black, but if inside its shroud of glossy enfoldings--
so like Loretta's hair--there lies enshrined a mouth
red as a pomegranate and as enticing, and if above