He understood my reasons, and acted accordingly.  He brought Charles to me, I presented both of them to the curate and his niece, and then left them to complete their business.

I heard afterwards from M. Dandolo that they all called upon Count Algarotti, and at the office of a notary, where the contract of marriage was signed, and that, after fixing a day for the wedding, Charles had escorted his intended back to P——.

On his return, Charles paid me a visit.  He told me that Christine had won by her beauty and pleasing manners the affection of his aunt, of his sister, and of his god-father, and that they had taken upon themselves all the expense of the wedding.

“We intend to be married,” he added, “on such a day at P——­, and I trust that you will crown your work of kindness by being present at the ceremony.”

I tried to excuse myself, but he insisted with such a feeling of gratitude, and with so much earnestness, that I was compelled to accept.  I listened with real pleasure to the account he gave me of the impression produced upon all his family and upon Count Algarotti by the beauty, the artlessness, the rich toilet, and especially by the simple talk of the lovely country girl.

“I am deeply in love with her,” Charles said to me, “and I feel that it is to you that I shall be indebted for the happiness I am sure to enjoy with my charming wife.  She will soon get rid of her country way of talking in Venice, because here envy and slander will but too easily shew her the absurdity of it.”

His enthusiasm and happiness delighted me, and I congratulated myself upon my own work.  Yet I felt inwardly some jealousy, and I could not help envying a lot which I might have kept for myself.

M. Daridolo and M. Barbaro having been also invited by Charles, I went with them to P——.  We found the dinner-table laid out in the rector’s house by the servants of Count Algarotti, who was acting as Charles’s father, and having taken upon himself all the expense of the wedding, had sent his cook and his major-domo to P——.

When I saw Christine, the tears filled my eyes, and I had to leave the room.  She was dressed as a country girl, but looked as lovely as a nymph.  Her husband, her uncle, and Count Algarotti had vainly tried to make her adopt the Venetian costume, but she had very wisely refused.

“As soon as I am your wife,” she had said to Charles, “I will dress as you please, but here I will not appear before my young companions in any other costume than the one in which they have always seen me.  I shall thus avoid being laughed at, and accused of pride, by the girls among whom I have been brought up.”

There was in these words something so noble, so just, and so generous, that Charles thought his sweetheart a supernatural being.  He told me that he had enquired, from the woman with whom Christine had spent a fortnight, about the offers of marriage she had refused at that time, and that he had been much surprised, for two of those offers were excellent ones.