“It is all over with you now, Herbert,” cried Fritz.

“You had better make a bonfire of your ships, like Fernando Cortez in Mexico; or, if you are on your way home, better pray for a hurricane to swallow you up, than have all your bright hopes dashed to atoms, when you arrive in port.”

“I am only a little girl,” said Sophia; “but I know what I should have said, if the gentleman had done the same thing to me.”

“And what would you have said, child?” inquired her mother.

“I should have said, that I was not the Doge of Venice, and had no intention of marrying the British Channel.”

“Can you describe the ceremony to which you refer?”

“Yes; but it would interrupt papa’s story, and Jack would laugh at me.”

“Never mind my story,” replied her father, “there is plenty of time to finish that.”

“And as for me,” said Jack, “though I do not wear a cocked hat and knee breeches, and though, in other respects, my tailor has rather neglected my outward man, still I know what is due to a lady and a queen.”

“There, he begins already!” said Sophia.

“Never mind him, child; go on with your account of the marriage.”

“Well,” began Sophia, “for a long time, there had been disputes between the states of Bologna, Ancona, and Venice, as to which possessed the sovereignty of the Adriatic.”

“If it had been a dispute about the Sovereignty of the ocean in general,” remarked Willis, “there would have been another competitor.”

“Venice,” continued Sophia, “carried the day, and about 1275 or 76 she resolved to celebrate her victory by an annual ceremony.  For this purpose, a magnificent galley was built, encrusted with gold, silver, and precious stones.  This floating bijou was called the Bucentaure, was guarded in the arsenal, whence it was removed on the eve of the Ascension.  Next day the Doge, the patriarch, and the Council of Ten embarked, and the galley was towed out to the open sea, but not far from the shore.  There, in the presence of the foreign ambassadors, whilst the clergy chanted the marriage service, the Doge advanced majestically to the front of the galley, and there formally wedded the sea.”

“He might have done worse,” observed Willis.

“The ceremony,” continued Sophia, “consisted in the Doge throwing a ring into the sea, saying, ’We wed thee, O sea! to mark the real and perpetual dominion we possess over thee.’”

“And it may be added,” observed Becker, “that the history of Venice shows how religiously the spouses of the Adriatic kept their vows.”

“Now,” said Sophia, “that I have told my tale, let us hear what became of Cecilia.”

“Well, the marriage took place the morning after Herbert’s ring had been thrown to the fishes.  Whilst the bride, bridegroom, and their friends were congratulating each other over the wedding breakfast, as is usual in England on such occasions, Cecilia’s father was called out of the room.”