hat was probably a part of marriage, which had always
seemed to her a mysterious affair at best. Young girls looked forward to
it with delight, and old women seemed to look back on it with
disappointment, while those who were neither old nor young never said
anything about it, but often seemed to be on bad terms with their
husbands.

But Ortensia was a fatalist, like most Venetian maidens of her time.
Whatever the master of the house and the head of the family decided
would be done, and there could be no question of resistance. In due
course she would marry her uncle, she would hold her tongue like other
married women while he lived, and when he was dead she would be at
liberty to tell her friends that her marriage had been a disappointment.
Of course Uncle Michele would die long before her--that was one
consolation--and the position of a rich widow in Venice was enviable.

Happily she had six months before her, during which time her education
was to be completed; happily, too, a large part of it now consisted in
music lessons, for she had a sweet voice, and the Senator meant that she
should astound Venetian society by singing his own compositions to them,
accompanying herself. She had great beauty, as well as some real talent,
and he judged that the effect of his verses and music, when rendered by
her, would be much enhanced by the magic light in her hazel eyes, by the
contrasted splendour of her auburn hair and ivory complexion, and by the
pretty motion of her taper fingers as they fluttered over the strings.
He looked forward to exhibiting the loveliest young woman in Venice, who
should sing his own songs divinely to an admiring circle of envious
friends. That would be a magnificent and well-deserved triumph, after
his long career as a gifted amateur and critic--and it would cost
nothing. Why should a wife be more expensive than a niece? His first
wife's brocades and velvets could easily be made over for Ortensia; and
for that matter the young girl expected nothing better, since she had no
family of her own to give her a great carved chest full of beautiful new
clothes and laces.

Uncle Michele did not condescend to honour her with another kiss, after
the formal occasion on which he had announced her betrothal to himself.
But he showed a growing interest in her music-lessons as the weeks
passed, and he frequently made her sing pieces of his own to him,
correcting each shade of expression most fastidiously, and occa