d slander will but too easily shew
her the absurdity of it."

His enthusiasm and happiness delighted me, and I congratulated myself
upon my own work. Yet I felt inwardly some jealousy, and I could not help
envying a lot which I might have kept for myself.

M. Daridolo and M. Barbaro having been also invited by Charles, I went
with them to P----. We found the dinner-table laid out in the rector's
house by the servants of Count Algarotti, who was acting as Charles's
father, and having taken upon himself all the expense of the wedding, had
sent his cook and his major-domo to P----.

When I saw Christine, the tears filled my eyes, and I had to leave the
room. She was dressed as a country girl, but looked as lovely as a nymph.
Her husband, her uncle, and Count Algarotti had vainly tried to make her
adopt the Venetian costume, but she had very wisely refused.

"As soon as I am your wife," she had said to Charles, "I will dress as
you please, but here I will not appear before my young companions in any
other costume than the one in which they have always seen me. I shall
thus avoid being laughed at, and accused of pride, by the girls among
whom I have been brought up."

There was in these words something so noble, so just, and so generous,
that Charles thought his sweetheart a supernatural being. He told me that
he had enquired, from the woman with whom Christine had spent a
fortnight, about the offers of marriage she had refused at that time, and
that he had been much surprised, for two of those offers were excellent
ones.

"Christine," he added, "was evidently destined by Heaven for my
happiness, and to you I am indebted for the precious possession of that
treasure."

His gratitude pleased me, and I must render myself the justice of saying
that I entertained no thought of abusing it. I felt happy in the
happiness I had thus given.

We repaired to the church towards eleven o'clock, and were very much
astonished at the difficulty we experienced in getting in. A large number
of the nobility of Treviso, curious to ascertain whether it was true that
the marriage ceremony of a country girl would be publicly performed
during Lent when, by waiting only one month, a dispensation would have
been useless, had come to P----. Everyone wondered at the permission
having been obtained from the Pope, everyone imagined that there was some
extraordinary reason for it, and was in despair because it was impossible
to guess that reason.