"How about you, little one? Would you, too, like a pigeon of your own?"
"No," she answered shyly, "I love them _all_ too much." And the soft coo,
coo-oo-oo from the lapful of birds seemed appreciative of her words.
"Very well, my dear, it shall be as you wish, and now that I have it all
straight in my old head, what pleases each of you best, what say you, shall
I begin the story?"
"Si! Si!" they cried in unison, settling back against the wall, anxious not
to lose a single syllable.
"It was in the time of the Doge, Enrico Dandolo," he began, bending a
questioning look at his eager listeners; "of course, you know that in the
long ago, Venice was ruled by men who bore the title of Doge?"
The children nodded assent, and he went on, impressively:
"Dandolo was a great man. He was eighty years old at the time he came into
the office, and blind, as well, but he was not too old to undertake mighty
enterprises."
"When was it he lived?" asked Andrea meditatively.
"Oh, many, many years ago--I am inclined to think it must have been at
least five or six hundred."
"Five or six hundred years ago!" repeated Andrea incredulously, his
childish mind refusing to compass so great a lapse of time.
"Well--thereabouts," Paolo resumed, somewhat disturbed at the interruption;
"it was in the time of the crusades. Have you ever heard of the crusades,
my dear?" And he softly touched Maria's chin. Before she could reply, her
brother put in, proudly, "I know, they were wars to rescue the holy lands
from the--" he paused.
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