THE GARDENS OF VENICE 
were gone, the Queen had retired to her rooms, and 
of all the company three youths and three maidens 
remained sitting in the marble loggia. And “since 
sleeping after meals is not healthy, and the summer 
days were too good to be wasted in slumber, one of 
the cavaliers, Gismondo, proposed that they should go 
out into the gardens and tell each other stories, resting 
on the grassy lawns. His companions agreed gladly, 
and the speaker led the way. 
“ The garden,” continues Bembo, “ was of rare and 
marvellous beauty. A wide and shady pergola of 
vines ran down the centre, and the walls on either 
side were concealed by thick hedges of box and 
juniper, while laurels arching overhead afforded the 
most refreshing shade, and were all so carefully cut 
and trimmed that not a single leaf was out of place. 
None of the walls could be seen, only at the end of 
the pergola, above the garden gate, two windows of 
dazzling white marble let in a view of the distant 
plains. Down this fair pathway the little troop 
walked, sheltered by the dense foliage from the fiery 
rays of the sun, until they reached a little meadow 
at the end of the garden. Here the grass was as 
fine in colour as an emerald, and all manner of bright 
flowers sprang up on the fresh green sward, and just be¬ 
yond was a shady grove of laurels, not clipped or trained 
like the others, but allowed to wander at will. In 
their midst was a beautiful fountain, from which a jet 
of clear water from the mountain-side fell with joyous 
sound into a marble basin, and thence flowed in gently 
127 
