D INQUISITOR.

ALL. Try we life-long, we can never
Straighten out life's tangled skein,
Why should we, in vain endeavour,
Guess and guess and guess again?

LUIZ. Life's a pudding full of plums,

DUCH. Care's a canker that benumbs.

ALL. Life's a pudding full of plums,
Care's a canker that benumbs.
Wherefore waste our elocution
On impossible solution?
Life's a pleasant institution,
Let us take it as it comes!

Set aside the dull enigma,
We shall guess it all too soon;
Failure brings no kind of stigma--
Dance we to another tune!

LUIZ. String the lyre and fill the cup,

DUCH. Lest on sorrow we should sup.

ALL. Hop and skip to Fancy's fiddle,
Hands across and down the middle--
Life's perhaps the only riddle
That we shrink from giving up!

(Exeunt all into Ducal Palace except Luiz, who goes off in
gondola.)

(Enter Gondoliers and Contadine, followed by Marco, Gianetta,
Giuseppe, and Tessa.)

CHORUS.

Bridegroom and bride!
Knot that's insoluble,
Voices all voluble
Hail it with pride.
Bridegroom and bride!
We in sincerity
Wish you prosperity,
Bridegroom and bride!

SONG--TESSA.

TESS. When a merry maiden marries,
Sorrow goes and pleasure tarries;
Every sound becomes a song,
All is right, and nothing's wrong!
From to-day and ever after
Let our tears be tears of laughter.
Every sigh that finds a vent
Be a sigh of sweet content!
When you marry, merry maiden,
Then the air with love is laden;
Every flower is a rose,
Every goose becomes a swan,
Every kind of trouble goes
Where the last year's snows have gone!

CHORUS. Sunlight takes the place of shade