and the wedding benediction had been granted, it was _not_ Gabriele, the
boyish betrothed of Toinetta, who brought the blushing bride, partly in
triumph and partly in pique, to her father's side, but Piero Salin, the
handsomest gondolier on the lagoons, the most daring and dreaded foe of
all the established traghetti. It had been impossible for the spectators
from the body of the church to follow closely the movements of the
twelve white-robed maidens with their attendant swains while the
ceremony was progressing in the dim recesses of the choir, and the
surprise and dishonor this unexpected _dénouement_ brought upon the home
were nothing to the unhappiness in store for the childish bride, whose
latest and wildest freak brought neither wisdom for self-discipline nor
power to endure that relentless criticism which ceased only when a
little one lay in the place of the child-mother, who had been too weak
to cope with the worries of the year that had followed upon that
unhappy day in San Pietro.

The jilted Gabriele had accepted the situation with a parade of
philosophical scorn which removed him beyond the pale of the sympathy
Marina would have offered him; and Marina--whose exquisite sense of
truth, decorum, and duty had been outraged to a degree beyond Toinetta's
comprehension--forgot it all in the overwhelming compassion with which
she took her little sister in her arms and tried to help her live her
difficult life; she realized, as only a large nature could, that love
was the only hope for this emergency, and, feeding on her measureless
compassion, love, the diviner faculty, grew to be a power.

Slowly and very dimly she had helped the young wife to some vague
comprehension of the duties she had so rashly assumed. Hitherto, for
Toinetta, there had been no difficulties, and now there were so many she
was frightened and did not understand; now, when Piero scolded at her