And thus, with a clatter of maids and valets--for it is one appurtenance of their
cousinship that however difficult they may find it to keep themselves, they MUST keep maids and valets--the cousins disperse to the four winds of heaven; and the one wintry wind that blows to-day shakes a shower from the trees near the deserted house, as if all the cousins had been changed into leaves.
I don't know why it happened that on this occasion I was more than ever struck with that queer air of sociability, of
cousinship and family life, which makes up half the expression of Venice.