rs either of us in years. Our Lady of Loretto lend him
strength long to wear the ducal bonnet, and wisdom to wear it well!"

"He hath lately sent offerings to her shrine."

"Signore, he hath. His confessor hath gone in person with the offering,
as I know of certainty. 'Tis not a serious gift, but a mere remembrance
to keep himself in the odor of sanctity. I doubt that his reign will not
be long!"

"There are, truly, signs of decay in his system. He is a worthy prince,
and we shall lose a father when called to weep for his loss!"

"Most true, Signore: but the horned bonnet is not an invulnerable
shield against the arrows of death. Age and infirmities are more potent
than our wishes."

"Thou art moody to-night, Signor Gradenigo. Thou art not used to be so
silent with thy friends."

"I am not the less grateful, Signore, for their favors. If I have a
loaded countenance, I bear a lightened heart. One who hath a daughter of
his own so happily bestowed in wedlock as thine, may judge of the relief
I feel by this disposition of my ward. Joy affects the exterior,
frequently, like sorrow; aye, even to tears."

His two companions looked at the speaker with much obvious sympathy in
their manners. They then left the chamber of doom together. The menials
entered and extinguished the lights, leaving all behind them in an
obscurity that was no bad type of the gloomy mysteries of the place.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Then methought,
A serenade broke silence, breathing hope
Through walls of stone."
ITALY.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the melody of music was rife
on the water. Gondolas continued to glide along the shadowed canals,
while the laugh or the song was echoed among the arches of the palaces.
The piazza and piazzetta were yet brilliant with lights, and gay with
their multitudes of unwearied revellers.

The habitation of Donna Violetta was far from the scene of general
amusement. Though so remote, the hum of the moving throng, and the
higher strains of the wind-instruments, came, from time to time, to the
ears of its inmates, mellowed and thrilling by distance.

The position of the moon cast the whole of the narrow passage which
flowed beneath the windows of her private apartments into shadow. In a
balcony which overhung the water, stood the youthful and ardent girl,
listening with a charmed ear and a tearful eye to one of those soft
strains, in which Venetian voices ans