Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/212

190 about her lovely neck and shoulders. Tall and elegant in figure, she bore herself like a princess who owed her birth to a race of kings. Her origin was indeed almost royal, for her father was the last of a long line of Venetian merchants, who ruled the commerce of the world, and whose countless ships furled their sails in every civilized port upon the globe.

Not long before this story opens, her father had died, leaving his only daughter heiress to such vast possessions on sea and land, of palaces and ships, treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones, storehouses of rich stuffs, silks and velvets, perfumes and spicery, that her wealth challenged belief, and was almost beyond account. Yet Portia, already in the full bloom of beauty, rich, and princely in her virtues, was still unwedded and kept her state in maiden loneliness. For such a strange fact there is a strange explanation, which forms the subject of this tale.

Portia’s father was a virtuous man, of excellent wisdom and judgment. He was very fond of his only child, and he chiefly feared lest, on his death, she might be wooed for her great wealth, and marry some one who would not love her for her goodness and beauty, but for her riches alone. Therefore he devised, shortly before his death, a scheme to get her a worthy husband