"Thou shouldst make thyself brave!" her father exclaimed, with a quick,
anxious glance at her simple home toilette. "He will pass from thee to
many noble ladies in the palazzo Giustiniani--all in bravery of
festival."

"Nay, my father, so he found me; I would not hold him by devices, of
which I know naught. There will be much to suffer, and these trifles
cannot enter into anything so deep and real. I would rather he should
change to-day--if he could be light enough to change. Besides," she
faltered, with a quick, charming blush, "I think it is already his step
without; and to-night he will have so few moments to spare me--Marco!"

Coming forward through the shadow of the doorway, the young
noble--deferent, masterful, unrenouncing--was a suitor not easily to be
baffled by any claims of Venice.

Girolamo turned quickly to his child, then looked away, for her face
made a radiance in the room; he, her father, who had loved her through
all the days of her maiden life with a great tenderness, had never known
the fullness of her beauty until now; the soft folds of the simple robe
flowing away from her into the surrounding shadow left the pure young
charm of her head and face in luminous relief, as the brilliant young
noble, in embroidered velvet and silken hose and jeweled clasps--a type
of sumptuous modern day Venice--stepped forward into the little circle
of light, bowing before her with courtly deference.

The vision of those youthful faces made it easy to forget the outward
contrast--a mere accident of birth.

Girolamo Magagnati had promised himself that he would be a true knight