So the
betrothal had been duly made in the presence of the numerous circle of
friends and relatives who stand as witnesses at a betrothal feast in
this City of the Sea, and who were as ready with their smiles and their
felicitations for any event in the home life of the quarter, as they
would be withering in their criticism should there be any failure of
complete fulfilment of those traditional observances which are
imperative in Venice. Thus the boy and girl were _spoza_ and _novizio_,
waiting the fuller bond in all that pretty interchange of tokens so
faithfully prescribed in Venetian circles of every degree; but the
period had been one of quarrels and forgivenesses, of fallings away from
and returns to favor, as might have been expected from two capricious,
foolish children.

To make part of the pretty pageant of the "Brides of Venice," which took
place on Lady Day in San Pietro in Castello, the maidens, all in white
with floating hair, their dower-boxes fastened by ribbons from their
shoulders, had seemed to Toinetta, as she stood each year an onlooker in
the admiring crowd, a happiness devoutly to be desired. The custom was a
survival of an earlier time, fast losing favor with the better classes
of the people; but to Toinetta its dramatic possibilities held a greater
fascination than the more sober ceremonial of the usual wedding service,
and, all persuasion to the contrary, when the procession gathered in
San Pietro in Castello, Toinetta, with flushed cheeks and sparkling
eyes, was one of the twelve maidens. Marina looked on with offended
eyes; her father consenting, yet only half-convinced, atoning for this
lessening of the family dignity by the elegance of the feast he had
provided, and all permitted bravery in the gondolas that were waiting to
take them thence.

The ups and downs of her childish courtship had culminated in more tears
and jealousies than usual on the previous day, but these were secrets
between the lovers, and quite unguessed by father or sister. But when
the wedding oration had been preached over those twelve bridal pairs,
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