The lover would examine Emilio, seeking some evidence of success;
would find no expression but that of a pure and dejected passion. And
throughout the house, as they visited from box to box, the men would say
to the ladies:

"La Cataneo is not yet Emilio's."

"She is unwise," said the old women. "She will tire him out."

"_Forse!_" (Perhaps) the young wives would reply, with the solemn
accent that Italians can infuse into that great word--the answer to many
questions here below.

Some women were indignant, thought the whole thing ill-judged, and
declared that it was a misapprehension of religion to allow it to
smother love.

"My dear, love that poor Emilio," said the Signora Vulpato to
Massimilla, as they met on the stairs in going out.

"I do love him with all my might," replied the Duchess.

"Then why does not he look happy?"

Massimilla's reply was a little shrug of her shoulders.

We in France--France as the growing mania for English proprieties has
made it--can form no idea of the serious interest taken in this affair
by Venetian society.

Vendramini alone knew Emilio's secret, which was carefully kept between
two men who had, for private pleasure, combined their coats of arms with
the motto _Non amici, frates_.

The opening night of the opera season is an event at Venice, as in every
capital in Italy. The _Fenice_ was crowded.

The five hours of the night that are spent at the theatre fill so
important a place in Italian life that it is well to give an account of
the customs that have risen from this manner of spending time.

The boxes in Italy are unlike those of any other country, inasmuch as
that elsewhere the women go to be seen, and that Italian ladies do not
care to make a show of themselves. Each box is long and narrow, sloping
at an angle to the front and to the passage behind. On each side is a
sofa, and at the end stand two armchairs, one for the mistress of the
box, and the other for a lady friend when she brings one, which she
rarely does. Each lady is in fact too much engaged in her own box to
call on others, or to wish to see them; also no one cares to introduce
a rival. An Italian woman almost always reigns alone in her box; the
mothers are not the slaves of their daughters, the daughters have no
mother on their hands; thus there are no children, no relations to watch
and censure and bore, or cut into a conversation.

In front every box is draped in the same way, with the sa