Whatever might have been the character of the conjectures made at the expense of poor Christine—­and they were wanting in neither variety nor malice—­most were compelled to agree in commending the diffidence of her air, and the gentle sweetness of her mild and peculiar beauty.  Some, indeed, affected to see artifice in the former, which was pronounced to be far too excellent, or too much overdone, for nature.  The usual amount of common-place remarks were made, too, on the lucky diversity that was to be found in tastes, and on the happy necessity there existed of all being able to find the means to please themselves.  But these were no more than the moral blotches that usually disfigure human commendation.  The sentiment and the sympathies of the mass were powerfully and irresistibly enlisted in favor of the unknown maiden—­feelings that were very unequivocally manifested as she drew nearer the estrade, walking timidly through a dense lane of bodies, all of which were pressing eagerly forward to get a better view of her person.

The bailiff, under ordinary circumstances, would have taken in dudgeon this violation of the rules prescribed for the government of the multitude; for he was perfectly sincere in his opinions, absurd as so many of them were, and, like many other honest men who defeat the effects they would produce by forced constructions of their principles, he was a little apt to run into excesses of discipline.  But in the present instance, he was rather pleased than otherwise to see the throng within the reach of his voice.  The occasion was, at best, but semi-official, and he was so far under the influence of the warm liquors of the cotes as to burn with the desire of putting forth still more liberally his flowers of eloquence and his stores of wisdom.  He received the inroad, therefore, with an air of perfect good-humor, a manifestation of assent that encouraged still greater innovations on the limits until the space occupied by the principal actors in this closing scene was reduced to the smallest possible size that was at all compatible with their movements and comforts.  In this situation of things the ceremonies proceeded.

The gentle flow of hope and happiness which was slowly increasing in the mild bosom of the bride, from the first moment of her appearance in this unusual scene to that in which it was checked by the cries of Pippo, had been gradually lessening under a sense of distrust, and she now entered the square with a secret and mysterious dread at the heart, which her inexperience and great ignorance of life served fearfully to increase.  Her imagination magnified the causes of alarm into some prepared and designed insult.  Christine, fully aware of the obloquy that pressed upon her race, had only consented to adopt this unusual mode of changing her condition, under a sensitive, apprehension that any other would have necessarily led to the exposure of her origin.  This fear, though exaggerated,