Thus the boy and girl were _spoza_ and _novizio_,
waiting the fuller bond in all that pretty interchange of tokens so
faithfully prescribed in Venetian circles of every degree; but the
period had been one of quarrels and forgivenesses, of fallings away from
and returns to favor, as might have been expected from two capricious,
foolish children.
To make part of the pretty pageant of the "Brides of Venice," which took
place on Lady Day in San Pietro in Castello, the maidens, all in white
with floating hair, their dower-boxes fastened by ribbons from their
shoulders, had seemed to Toinetta, as she stood each year an onlooker in
the admiring crowd, a happiness devoutly to be desired. The custom was a
survival of an earlier time, fast losing favor with the better classes
of the people; but to Toinetta its dramatic possibilities held a greater
fascination than the more sober ceremonial of the usual wedding service,
and, all persuasion to the contrary, when the procession gathered in
San Pietro in Castello, Toinetta, with flushed cheeks and sparkling
eyes, was one of the twelve maidens.
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