"It is because none are like her, and her soul is beautiful as her face!
My mother, there are none prouder in all this palace; the little
Contessa Beata is a _contadina_ beside her! Yet, it is not pride, I
think, but love and care for my happiness," he added, grown suddenly
bold. "She will not come to bring me sorrow; and she hath said that my
duty being to Venice, she can wed me only with the consent of our house.
And Messer Magagnati----"

"There is a father, then, who would treat with thee?"

"Mother--use not that tone; thou dost not understand! Ask the Veronese.
Messer Magagnati knows not of this; for so tenderly doth his daughter
care for him that, to save him pain of knowing that she suffers for lack
of thy welcome, she hath not told him. Shall the Veronese plead with
thee better than thine own son? For he knoweth the maiden well; and the
father, who is most honorably reported in Venice for the wonder of his
discoveries in his industry of glass. He is of the people--of the
'original citizens'--for of the days before the _serrata_[1] hath his
family records; but he might well be of the Signoria, so grave he is and
full of dignity. And his name is old--_Mother_!"

[1] An important constitutional act, limiting the aristocracy to those
families who had at that period, sat in the Council; always referred
to as an era in Venetian history.

"Nay, Marco, lift thy sword; how should it lie there for lack of thy
mother's favor? I will not have thee suffer, if I can give thee aid. But
one may suffer in other ways--quite other--which thou hast no knowledge
of, for to thee there seemeth to be, in all the world, nothing worthy
but this wish of thine! But it is no promise; one must ponder in so