-but I suppose I've got to go and see her--tiresome stuck-up thing!"

Human nature appears to be just the same, all over the world. We see the

diffident young man, mild of moustache, affluent of hair, indigent of

brain, elegant of costume, drive up to her father's mansion, tell his

hackman to bail out and wait, start fearfully up the steps and meet "the

old gentleman" right on the threshold!--hear him ask what street the new

British Bank is in--as if that were what he came for--and then bounce

into his boat and skurry away with his coward heart in his boots!--see

him come sneaking around the corner again, directly, with a crack of the

curtain open toward the old gentleman's disappearing gondola, and out

scampers his Susan with a flock of little Italian endearments fluttering

from her lips, and goes to drive with him in the watery avenues down

toward the Rialto.

We see the ladies go out shopping, in the most natural way, and flit from

street to street and from store to store, just in the good old fashion,

except that they leave the gondola, instead of a private carriage,

waiting at the curbstone a couple of hours for them,--waiting while they

make the nice young clerks pull down tons and tons of silks and velvets

and moire antiques and those things; and then they buy a paper of pins

and go paddling away to confer the rest of their disastrous patronage on

some other firm. And they always have their purchases sent home just in

the good old way. Human nature is very much the same all over the world;

and it is so like my dear native home to see a Venetian lady go into a

store and buy ten cents' worth of blue ribbon and have it sent home in a

scow. Ah, it is these little touches of nature that move one to tears in

259

The Innocents Abroad