se that happiness did not follow in every instance.

But there is poor Francesca Ziani. It is now her turn. Her cruel
parents remain unsubdued and unsoftened by her deep and touching
sorrows. She is made to rise, to totter forward to the altar, scarcely
conscious of any thing, except, perhaps, that the worthless, but
wealthy, Ulric Barberigo is at her side. Once more the mournful
spectacle restores to the spectators all their better feelings. They
perceive, they feel the cruelty of that sacrifice to which her kindred
are insensible. In vain do they murmur "shame!" In vain does she turn
her vacant, wild, but still expressive eyes, expressive because of
their very soulless vacancy, to that stern, ambitious mother, whose
bosom no longer responds to her child with the true maternal feeling.
Hopeless of help from that quarter, she lifts her eyes to Heaven, and,
no longer listening to the words of the holy man, she surrenders
herself only to despair.

Is it Heaven that hearkens to her prayer? Is it the benevolent office
of an angel that bursts the doors of the church at the very moment
when she is called upon to yield that response which dooms her to
misery forever? To her ears, the thunders which now shook the church
were the fruits of Heaven's benignant interposition. The shrieks of
women on every hand--the oaths and shouts of fierce and insolent
authority--the clamors of men--the struggles and cries of those who
seek safety in flight or entreat for mercy--suggest no other idea to
the wretched Francesca, than that she is saved from the embraces of
Ulric Barberigo. She is only conscious that, heedless of her, and of
the entreaties of her mother, he is the first to endeavor selfishly to
save himself by flight. But her escape from Barberigo is only the
prelude to other embraces. She knows not, unhappy child! that she is
an object of desire to another, until she finds herself lifted in the
grasp of Pietro Barbaro, the terrible chief of the Istrute pirates. He
and his brothers have kept their pledges to one another, and they have
been successful in their prey. Their fierce followers have subdued to
submission the struggles of a weaponless multitude, who, with horror
and consternation, behold the loveliest of their virgins, the just
wedded among them, borne away upon the shoulders of the pirates to
their warlike galleys. Those who resist them perish. Resistance was
hopeless. The fainting and shrieking women, like the Sabine dams