loria!"

And the people, accepting as a favor the pageant which had been
cunningly devised to impress them, followed, thronging, up the giant
stairway, into the halls of the Council Chamber, into the stately
presence of the Serenissimo and the Signoria, to hear their latest
magnate profess his gratitude for the honor of his investiture and the
magnificence of his outfit, with solemn oaths of loyalty.

There was no war, though talk of it had little truce in those days; but
the cardinal nephews were busy in Ferrara and Ancona with the marshaling
of troops, and four of the princes of the Church had been appointed by
the Holy Father--vice-regent of the Prince of Peace--to superintend his
military operations and prepare his army of forty thousand infantry and
four thousand cavalry! Thus, in Venice, the spectacle of a
general-in-chief, with his splendid accoutrements, was timely and
inspiriting.

Meanwhile, in the palazzo Giustiniani the days dragged wearily, and knew
no sunshine; the Senator Marcantonio had been by special favor excused
from attendance in the Council Chamber; in his mind Venice was no longer
regnant; one thought absorbed him wholly through all that miserable
time--he had but one hope--everything centred in Marina.

When they had undressed her to apply restoratives a small, rough
crucifix had been taken from the folds of her robe near her heart; it
had belonged to Santa Beata Tagliapietra,--that devoted daughter of the
Church,--and the Lady Beata herself had given the precious heirloom out
of the treasures of the chapel of their house to her beloved Lady
Marina. Possibly she reflected, with a shudder, as she laid the relic on
the altar of the oratory of the palazzo Giustiniani, that the
remembrance of the constant dangers of Santa Beata had incited the Lady
Marina thus to peril her life. Of the long nights of vigil on the floor
of the oratory and of many other austerities which had filled those last
sad days since the quarrel with Rome had begun, the Lady Beata was
forced to give faithful account to the physicians who were summoned in
immediate consultation to the bedchamber of the Lady Marina. These
practices and the horror upon which she had dwelt ceaselessly would
sufficiently account for her condition, said the learned Professor
Santorio; and if she could but forget it there might be hope; meanwhile,
let her memory lie dormant--at present nothing must be done to rouse
her.

Perhaps already she had f