maiden, unless we seek it in the rich and flaming jewels with
which she is decorated and almost laden down; and these no more
declare for her emotions than the roses which encircle the neck of
the white lamb, as it is led to the altar and the priest. The fate of
the two is not unlike, and so also is their character. Francesca Ziani
is decreed for a sacrifice. She was one of those sweet and winning,
but feeble spirits, which know how to submit only. She has no powers
of resistance. She knows that she is a victim; she feels that her
heart has been wronged even to the death, by the duty to which it is
now commanded; she feels that it is thus made the cruel but unwilling
instrument for doing a mortal wrong to the heart of another; but she
lacks the courage to refuse, to resist, to die rather than submit. Her
nature only teaches her submission; and this is the language of the
wo-begone, despairing glance--but one--which she bestows, in passing
up the aisle, upon one who stands beside a column, close to her
progress, in whose countenance she perceives a fearful struggle,
marking equally his indignation and his grief.

Giovanni Gradenigo was one of the noblest cavaliers of Venice--but
nobleness, as we know, is not always, perhaps not often, the
credential in behalf of him who seeks a maiden from her parents. He
certainly was not the choice of Francesca's sire. The poor girl was
doomed to the embraces of one Ulric Barberigo, a man totally destitute
of all nobility, that alone excepted which belonged to wealth. This
shone in the eyes of Francesca's parents, but failed utterly to
attract her own. She saw, through the heart's simple, unsophisticated
medium, the person of Giovanni Gradenigo only. Her sighs were given to
him, her loathings to the other. Though meek and finally submissive,
she did not yield without a remonstrance, without mingled tears and
entreaties, which were found unavailing. The ally of a young damsel is
naturally her mother, and when she fails her, her best human hope is
lost. Alas! for the poor Francesca! It was her mother's weakness,
blinded by the wealth of Ulric Barberigo, that rendered the father's
will so stubborn. It was the erring mother that wilfully beheld her
daughter led to the sacrifice, giving no heed to the heart which was
breaking, even beneath its heavy weight of jewels. How completely that
mournful and desponding, that entreating and appealing glance to her
indignant lover, told her wretched