A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from
an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal.
The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and,
although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout
swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the
surface, the treasure which was to be found, alas! only within the
abyss. Upon the broad black marble flagstones at the entrance of the
palace, and a few steps above the water, stood a figure which none who
then saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa
Aphrodite --the adoration of all Venice --the gayest of the gay
--the most lovely where all were beautiful --but still the young
wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of that fair
child, her first and only one, who now deep beneath the murky water,
was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and
exhausting its little life in struggles to call upon her name.
She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the
black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more than
half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered,
amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in
curls like those of the young hyacinth.
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