Meanwhile, for a suitable alliance there were already schemes on foot,
and mothers of noble young Venetian ladies paid frequent court to the
stately Lady Laura in her palace on the Canal Grande; and fathers, in
the Senate, in moments of unbending, discussed the probability of the
immediate rise of the young Giustinian upon his admission to the
Consiglio--he was competent and not positive, gracious and no fool, he
could be made to see the wisdom of other people's opinions, which, with
the elder Giustinian, was unheard of!

Among the maidens who should grace the banquet to be given on
Marcantonio's birthnight, more than one had sat for hours in some high
balcony of her palace, preparing for Venetian belle-ship with a patience
worthy of a better cause--her long locks, mysteriously treated,
streaming over the broad brim of the great, crownless hat which
protected her fair face, while the sun bestowed its last touch of beauty
in bleaching the dark tresses to that rich, red, burnished gold which
the Venetians prized.

The young patrician was already esteemed a connoisseur in the most
exquisite industries of Venice, and the Lady Laura had confided to her
son the ordering of a set of goblets of _girasole_ for the banquet--a
new opalescent glass, with iridescent borderings, such as had never yet
been seen at any Venetian fête.

Thus the gondola of the Giustiniani floated for long hours before the
famous establishment of Girolamo Magagnati, so delicate and intricate
was the work that had been ordered from him; and the gondoliers,
meanwhile, in their splendid liveries, held converse with other
gondoliers in lazily drifting barks, with hatchments of other noble
houses embroidered on their sleeves; and their tones were strident and