CHAPTER XX.

"Malheureux! cet instant oû votre âme engourdie A secoué les fers qu’ elle traine ici-bas, Ce fugitif instant fut toute votre vie; Ne le regrettez pas." It was a wonderful morning which saw the birth of the new year in Venice,--one of those clear, bright days on which Winter lays aside all his severity and assumes the smiles of the Spring still asleep in the bosom of the stiffened earth. The _piazza_ was filled with a motley crowd of holiday folk, and the lagoons swarmed with a fleet of gondolas an…