e rack would never have extorted the youth's
name from lips of hers. But one thing did grieve her much, and that was
her dear lady's firm resolve that all must be over for ever, so soon as
Attilio had exchanged rings with his bride Emilia Scarpa. 'What can you
be thinking of?' said the old woman. 'Do you suppose you will be able
quietly to endure that another should adorn herself with the flower
that you have worn on your breast? As sure as I love you, lady, more
than the fruit of my own body, you will die of it, your heart will
break in twain like an apple when you run a knife into its midst.'
'Nurse,' said the Blonde, 'you may be right. But what of that? Better
that I should be destroyed, than the one I love, and this dear city
which is the mother of us both.' 'What folly you utter!' replied the
old woman. 'If he love you as he says, and I believe, he will not be
able to survive it; and so your obstinacy will bring about the death of
two. And as for the city, now that it is defended by such a hero, it
may safely challenge the enmity of three cities, each of them mightier
than Vicenza.' Such arguments and others did Attilio too urge, and ever
more and more pressingly as the time drew near when he must bid an
eternal farewell to the eyes he adored.

"He still hoped, as he had hoped from the first day, to conquer her
opposition, and was resolved to sacrifice everything for her. Gianna,
on the other hand, to whom the bare idea of her lover's heart ever
growing cold, and regretting that he had linked his young life with her
faded one, was far more bitter than parting or death, tried, whenever
he assailed her with fresh entreaties, to turn away his impetuosity by
some jest about her age, and the inconstancy of men, and to make the
Present so sweet to him, that in it he should forget the bitterness of
the Future.

"Meanwhile in both houses, that of the Buonfigli as of the Scarpa,
preparations for the marriage were eagerly carried on, and in nine
weeks from the triumphal entry of the bridegroom, a no less brilliant
reception was accorded by the inhabitants of Treviso to the bride. If,
however, amongst the spectators there was even greater general joy than
before, because of the now sealed and ratified treaty between the two
cities, and also owing to the presence of the young and richly adorned
bride with her escort of sixteen bridesmaids, all mounted on white
jennets, and wearing costly apparel,--there were two in the festal