of amber, round her throat.  Gold earrings and the long gold chains Venetian women wear, of all patterns and degrees of value, abounded.  Nobody appeared without them; but I could not see any of an antique make.  The men seemed to be contented with rings—­huge, heavy rings of solid gold, worked with a rough flower pattern.  One young fellow had three upon his fingers.  This circumstance led me to speculate whether a certain portion at least of this display of jewellery around me had not been borrowed for the occasion.

Eustace and I were treated quite like friends.  They called us I Signori.  But this was only, I think, because our English names are quite unmanageable.  The women fluttered about us and kept asking whether we really liked it all? whether we should come to the pranzo? whether it was true we danced?  It seemed to give them unaffected pleasure to be kind to us; and when we rose to go away, the whole company crowded round, shaking hands and saying:  ’Si divertira bene stasera!’ Nobody resented our presence; what was better, no one put himself out for us.  ‘Vogliono veder il nostro costume,’ I heard one woman say.

We got home soon after eight, and, as our ancestors would have said, settled our stomachs with a dish of tea.  It makes me shudder now to think of the mixed liquids and miscellaneous cakes we had consumed at that unwonted hour.

At half-past three, Eustace and I again prepared ourselves for action.  His gondola was in attendance, covered with the felze, to take us to the house of the sposa.  We found the canal crowded with poor people of the quarter—­men, women, and children lining the walls along its side, and clustering like bees upon the bridges.  The water itself was almost choked with gondolas.  Evidently the folk of San Vio thought our wedding procession would be a most exciting pageant.  We entered the house, and were again greeted by the bride and bridegroom, who consigned each of us to the control of a fair tyrant.  This is the most fitting way of describing our introduction to our partners of the evening; for we were no sooner presented, than the ladies swooped upon us like their prey, placing their shawls upon our left arms, while they seized and clung to what was left available of us for locomotion.  There was considerable giggling and tittering throughout the company when Signora Fenzo, the young and comely wife of a gondolier, thus took possession of Eustace, and Signora dell’ Acqua, the widow of another gondolier, appropriated me.  The affair had been arranged beforehand, and their friends had probably chaffed them with the difficulty of managing two mad Englishmen.  However, they proved equal to the occasion, and the difficulties were entirely on our side.  Signora Fenzo was a handsome brunette, quiet in her manners, who meant business.  I envied Eustace his subjection to such a reasonable being.  Signora dell’ Acqua, though a widow, was by no means disconsolate; and I soon perceived that it would