nuns indeed were not to take part in the ball; but a number of them were to appear in an allegorical entertainment with which the evening was to open.  The new Papal Nuncio, who was lately arrived in Venice, had promised to be present; and as he was known to be a man of pleasure there was scarce a sister in the convent but had an eye to his conquest.  These circumstances gave to Fulvia’s plans the shelter of indifference; for in the delightful effort of surpassing the other nuns even Mary of the Crucifix lost interest in her friend’s affairs.

Odo, to preserve the secrecy of his designs, had been obliged to keep up a pretence of his former habits, showing himself abroad with Coeur-Volant and Castelrovinato and frequenting the Procuratessa’s routs and card-parties.  This lady, though lately returned to the Brenta, had announced her intention of coming to Venice for the ball at Santa Chiara; and Coeur-Volant was mightily preoccupied with the entertainment, at which he purposed his mistress should outshine all her companions.

The evening came at last, and Odo found himself entering the gates of Santa Chiara with a throng of merry-makers.  The convent was noted for its splendid hospitality, and unwonted preparations had been made to honour the saint.  The brightly-illuminated bridge leading to the square of Santa Chiara was decked with a colonnade of pasteboard and stiffened linen cunningly painted, and a classical portico masked the entrance gate.  A flourish of trumpets and hautboys, and the firing of miniature cannon, greeted the arrival of the guests, who were escorted to the parlour, which was hung with tapestries and glowing with lights like a Lady Chapel.  Here they were received by the abbess, who, on the arrival of the Nuncio, led the way to the garden, where a stage had been erected.

The nuns who were not to take part in the play had been seated directly under the stage, divided from the rest of the company by a low screen of foliage.  Ranged beneath the footlights, which shone on their bare shoulders and white gowns, and on the gauze veils replacing their monastic coifs, they seemed a choir of pagan virgins grouped in the proscenium of an antique theatre.  Everything indeed combined to produce the impression of some classic festival:  the setting of motionless foliage, the mild autumnal sky in which the stars hung near and vivid, and the foreground thronged with a motley company lit by the shifting brightness of torches.

As Odo, in mask and travesty, stood observing the fantastically-dressed audience, the pasteboard theatre adorned with statuary, and the nuns flitting across the stage, his imagination, strung to the highest pitch by his own impending venture, was thrilled by the contrast between the outward appearance of the scene and its underlying reality.  From where he stood he looked directly at the abbess, who was seated with the Nuncio and his suite under the tall crucifix in the centre