“Oh, mother!” cried Ginevra, deeply moved.

She felt the impulse to rush home, to breathe the blessed air of her father’s house, to fling herself at his feet, to see her mother.  She was springing forward to accomplish this wish, when Luigi entered.  At the mere sight of him her filial emotion vanished; her tears were stopped, and she no longer had the strength to abandon that loving and unfortunate youth.  To be the sole hope of a noble being, to love him and then abandon him!—­that sacrifice is the treachery of which young hearts are incapable.  Ginevra had the generosity to bury her own grief and suffering silently in her soul.

The marriage day arrived.  Ginevra had no friend with her.  While she was dressing, Luigi fetched the witnesses necessary to sign the certificate of marriage.  These witnesses were worthy persons; one, a cavalry sergeant, was under obligations to Luigi, contracted on the battlefield, obligations which are never obliterated from the heart of an honest man; the other, a master-mason, was the proprietor of the house in which the young couple had hired an apartment for their future home.  Each witness brought a friend, and all four, with Luigi, came to escort the bride.  Little accustomed to social functions, and seeing nothing in the service they were rendering to Luigi but a simple matter of business, they were dressed in their ordinary clothes, without any luxury, and nothing about them denoted the usual joy of a marriage procession.

Ginevra herself was dressed simply, as befitted her present fortunes; and yet her beauty was so noble and so imposing that the words of greeting died away on the lips of the witnesses, who supposed themselves obliged to pay her some usual compliments.  They bowed to her with respect, and she returned the bow; but they did so in silence, looking at her with admiration.  This reserve cast a chill over the whole party.  Joy never bursts forth freely except among those who are equals.  Thus chance determined that all should be dull and grave around the bridal pair; nothing reflected, outwardly, the happiness that reigned within their hearts.

The church and the mayor’s office being near by, Luigi and Ginevra, followed by the four witnesses required by law, walked the distance, with a simplicity that deprived of all pomp this greatest event in social life.  They saw a crowd of waiting carriages in the mayor’s court-yard; and when they reached the great hall where the civil marriages take place, they found two other wedding-parties impatiently awaiting the mayor’s arrival.

Ginevra sat down beside Luigi at the end of a long bench; their witnesses remained standing, for want of seats.  Two brides, elaborately dressed in white, with ribbons, laces, and pearls, and crowned with orange-blossoms whose satiny petals nodded beneath their veils, were surrounded by joyous families, and accompanied by their mothers, to whom they looked up, now and then, with eyes that were content and timid both; the faces of all the rest reflected happiness, and seemed to be invoking blessings on the youthful pairs.  Fathers, witnesses, brothers, and sisters went and came, like a happy swarm of insects disporting in the sun.  Each seemed to be impressed with the value of this passing moment of life, when the heart finds itself within two hopes,—­the wishes of the past, the promises of the future.