rings--huge, heavy
rings of solid gold, worked with a rough flower pattern. One young
fellow had three upon his fingers. This circumstance led me to speculate
whether a certain portion at least of this display of jewellery around
me had not been borrowed for the occasion.

Eustace and I were treated quite like friends. They called us _I
Signori_. But this was only, I think, because our English names are
quite unmanageable. The women fluttered about us and kept asking whether
we really liked it all? whether we should come to the _pranzo_? whether
it was true we danced? It seemed to give them unaffected pleasure to be
kind to us; and when we rose to go away, the whole company crowded
round, shaking hands and saying: "_Si divertira bene stasera_!" Nobody
resented our presence; what was better, no one put himself out for us.
"_Vogliono veder il nostro costume_," I heard one woman say.

We got home soon after eight, and, as our ancestors would have said,
settled our stomachs with a dish of tea. It makes me shudder now to
think of the mixed liquids and miscellaneous cakes we had consumed at
that unwonted hour.

At half-past three, Eustace and I again prepared ourselves for action.
His gondola was in attendance, covered with the _felze_, to take us to
the house of the _sposa_. We found the canal crowded with poor people of
the quarter--men, women, and children lining the walls along its side,
and clustering like bees upon the bridges. The water itself was almost
choked with gondolas. Evidently the folk of San Vio thought our wedding
procession would be a most exciting pageant. We entered the house, and
were again greeted by the bride and bridegroom, who consigned each of us
to the control of a fair tyrant. This is the most fitting way of
describing our introduction to our partners of the evening; for we were
no sooner presented, than the ladies swooped upon us like their prey,
placing their shawls upon our left arms, while they seized and clung to
what was left available of us for locomotion. There was considerable
giggling and tittering throughout the company when Signora Fenzo, the
young and comely wife of a gondolier, thus took possession of Eustace,
and Signora dell'Acqua, the widow of another gondolier, appropriated me.
The affair had been arranged beforehand, and their friends had probably
chaffed them with the difficulty of managing two mad Englishmen.
However, they proved equal to the occasion, and the difficulties w