excitement increasing in proportion to the new perfections I discovered
in her, I doubled my efforts; all in vain. At last, compelled to give way
to fatigue, I fell asleep in her arms, holding her tightly, against me. A
noisy chime of bells woke us.

"What is the matter?" I exclaimed.

"Let us get up, dearest; it is time for me to return to the convent."

"Dress yourself, and let me have the pleasure of seeing you in the garb
of a saint, since you are going away a virgin."

"Be satisfied for this time, dearest, and learn from me how to practice
abstinence; we shall be happier another time. When I have gone, if you
have nothing to hurry you, you can rest here."

She rang the bell, and the same woman who had appeared in the evening,
and was most likely the secret minister and the confidante of her amorous
mysteries, came in. After her hair had been dressed, she took off her
gown, locked up her jewellery in her bureau, put on the stays of a nun,
in which she hid the two magnificent globes which had been during that
fatiguing night the principal agents of my happiness, and assumed her
monastic robes. The woman having gone out to call the gondoliers,
M---- M---- kissed me warmly and tenderly, and said to me,

"I expect to see you the day after to-morrow, so as to hear from you
which night I am to meet you in Venice; and then, my beloved lover, you
shall be happy and I too. Farewell."

Pleased without being satisfied, I went to bed and slept soundly until