Incholese was proud and spirited, and so completely was he irritated at the repeated efforts he made to gain a single hour's social converse with the lofty Helen of his hopes, that he vowed at last at the risk of a special nuncio from his Holiness to go the length of his fortune to bring her upon a level with himself if he remained in the parallax but fifteen minutes. The Spanish minister was married; but a star on the fashionable horizon higher than the Vesta of his own choice, prompted the proffer of his help, in the establishment of a medium point of lustre. The Senate did not assemble oftener to devise ways and means for the discharge of the public debt and for the safety of the State, than did Incholese and the minister, to humble the haughty heiress of the rich possessions of the Doge; and the conspiracy seemed as perilous and important as the great stratagem of the Duke de Ossumna against the government of Venice. A thousand plans were proposed, matured and put in execution, but their repeated failure served only to mortify the conspirators and make them more intent upon the execution of their plan. It was to no purpose that the Doge was invited _with his family_ to spend a social hour, or that in return the invitation was given from the palace; the uncompromising object of innumerable schemes, and proud breaker of hearts, still kept aloof--still maintained her ascendancy. While these petty intrigues were going forward, a conspiracy of a more daring character was in the course of prosecution. It was nothing less than the conspiracy of the Spaniards against the government of Venice--a circumstance which at the present time forms no unimportant portion of Venetian history.