my aunt.

"Nevertheless, plans of elopement were frequently discussed, and I
vehemently urged her to become mine, and to accompany me to Greece,
from whence, after I had accomplished a momentous object, we could
embark for Marseilles, and proceed to Paris, where my skill as a
painter, in addition to my maternal estate, would preserve us from
indigence. As she did not peremptorily forbid me to expect her consent
to this scheme, I ventured to build upon it; but when my preparations
for flight were completed, her resolution failed, and I discovered, in
the deeply-rooted attachment of Laura to her mother, an insuperable
obstacle to the accomplishment of my purpose. For this kind and
indulgent parent her affection was all but idolatrous; and when she
told me, with tearful eyes and throbbing bosom, that her beloved
mother was in precarious health, that she was entirely dependent on
her only daughter for earthly happiness, and that the loss of that
daughter would destroy her, I must have been dead to every generous
and disinterested feeling had I not complied with her earnest
entreaty, that we should await a more favourable course of events.

"Meanwhile the distinguished beauty and numberless graces of Laura
attracted many suitors. Some of these were not ineligible, and one of
them especially, young Contarini--whose passion for her was ardent,
almost to frenzy--was a man of noble qualities, of prepossessing
exterior, and of equal rank, but, as you well know, too moderately
endowed with the gifts of fortune. Every proposal was, however,
promptly rejected by the ambitious Foscari, who, like a cold and
calculating trader, measured the merits of each suitor by the extent
of his possessions. At length, after the conclusion of the war with
Turkey in the spring, arrived from Greece the governor of Candia,
Ercole Barozzo, whose splendid establishment and lavish expenditure
attracted universal attention. His originally large possessions had
been swelled into princely opulence by clandestine traffic with the
enemy, and by every species of cruelty and exaction. His wife and two
infant sons had fallen victims to the plague in the Levant; and being
desirous of children to inherit his vast possessions, he surveyed
the fair daughters of Venice, and was quickly fascinated by the
superlative beauty of Laura Foscari, who shone unrivalled in a city
distinguished for the beauty of the softer sex. Barozzo was not a
suitor to be rejected by her s