n enthusiasm; "very beautiful--like a gift to the Holy
Mother!"

"And it shall bring a blessing on thy marriage," the Lady Laura answered
her.

So when the secretary and his young wife had returned to Venice and
their palace was thrown open to guests, the private chapel of the Lady
Marina was discovered to be a marvel of decoration--with superb Venetian
frescoes set in marvelous scrollwork by Vittoria, with carvings of
mother-of-pearl from Constantinople, with every sumptuous detail that
could be devised; for, during the three years of their absence, the Lady
Laura had not wearied of her gracious task nor stayed her hand. And into
this incongruous setting--costly, overloaded, composite, and destitute
of true religious feeling, a very type of the time in Venice--Marina
brought the redeeming note of consecration, a priceless altar--ancient,
earth-stained, and rude, almost grotesque in symbolism--as a great prize
and by special dispensation, from an underground chapel in Rome. Also
the rare and beautiful ivory crucifix had its history; the malachite
basin for holy water had been a gift to the infant Giustinian from his
eminence the cardinal-sponsor on the day of his baptism; there were
other treasures, more rare and sacred still, within the shrine of the
oratory, and there was a gift from his Holiness Pope Clement VIII.

There was no banquet hall in the palazzo Marcantonio Giustiniani, but it
was not needed, for the two palaces were like one.

The Lady Laura was radiant. If there had ever been a question of the
place that Marcantonio's bride should occupy in that patrician circle,
the distinction conferred upon her by the Senate had sufficed to
establish it. There could be no jealousy of one who occupied the highest
place, of one so gracious and equal to her honors, only of those who
should win her favor. So all came in the hope of it, and all were won;
but there were no partialities, no intimacies; for all ambitions of the
young and newly created patrician, the fullness of the home life
sufficed to her.

Marina had grown more beautiful out of the joy of loving and the
increased satisfaction of her religious life, to which she was more than
ever devoted; her passion for beauty expressed itself by delight in
sumptuous ceremonial, while her love of romance and her unquestioning
faith were alike nourished on the legends of the saints which had become
far more to her during her stay in Rome, where every hour had been
hap