handwriting, and the volume had been superintended by many learned heads,—­awaited with impatience, as a triumph for its makers,—­and thought a thing rare enough to be offered, like a jewel, to the learned and illustrious lady, Isabella of Mantua.  Marcantonio was no pedant, but these treasures simply had their place in the richly painted cabinet, beside many other bits of exquisite workmanship, because rare things in every art were beautiful to our dilettante, and possessions of all kinds came to him easily.

There lay the golden necklace presented by Henry III. of France to a Giustinian who had been one of the young nobles set apart for the household of the king, when on his visit to Venice; and beside it a curious volume of songs, all in honor of France and of the king, entitled “Il Magno Enrico III., difensore di Santa Chiesa, di Francia e di Polonia Re christianissimo.”  Here was also preserved that still more curious allegorical drama which had been given at the grand fete at the Ducal Palace in honor of this over-adulated monarch.  It was natural that some of these literary curiosities, of which the visit of Henry III. had been prolific, should have remained in possession of the masters of the palace which had been tendered for his residence.  The volume, bound in azure velvet, embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis and seeded with pearls, lay open at the page “Chapter in which the Most Holy Catholic Religion is introduced conversing with the most Christian, most powerful and most holy Henry III., the most glorious King of France and Poland.”

The noble lady Laura Giustiniani, who looked with pride upon these costly trifles of the cabinet of Marcantonio, was a Venetian in every throb of her patrician veins—­first a patriot and then a mother—­she earnestly coveted for her son that he should render vast services to the state, receive in his early years the Patriarch’s blessing upon his alliance with some ancient Venetian house, and close his noble career with the Doge’s coronet.  She admitted reluctantly to herself, although she would never have confessed it openly, that in these latter days of the Republic the ermine was not likely to be offered to one so stern and masterful as her husband; while she also knew, and the knowledge held its compensation, that Giustinian Giustiniani could not be spared from the Councils of his government.  She knew her history well, and she realized that the days of the Michieli and Orseoli were over, and that the supreme honor was no longer for the strong but for the pliant; this had made her the more willing that her son should partake of the facile and gracious mood of this time of Renaissance, and had led her to shape his education more in consonance with his natural tastes than with her own views of fitness for a Venetian noble.  She knew that this was weakness for a Giustinian; but it was hard to see the noble line pass down through the centuries without that coveted sign of honor—­the minikin Lion of San Marco, the mighty symbol—­carved upon their palaces.