While I was praising the beauty of Mother M---- E---- to Dr. Righelini, he
whispered to me that he could get her me for a money payment, if I were
curious in the matter. A hundred sequins for her and ten sequins for the
go-between was the price fixed on. He assured me that Murray had had her,
and could have her again. Seeing my surprise, he added that there was not
a nun whom one could not have by paying for her: that Murray had the
courage to disburse five hundred sequins for a nun of Muran--a rare
beauty, who was afterwards the mistress of the French ambassador.

Though my passion for M---- M---- was on the wane, I felt my heart gripped
as by a hand of ice, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I made
no sign. Notwithstanding, I took the story for an atrocious calumny, but
yet the matter was too near my heart for me to delay in bringing it to
light at the earliest opportunity. I therefore replied to Righelini in
the calmest manner possible, that one or two nuns might be had for money,
but that it could happen very rarely on account of the difficulties in
most convents.

"As for the nun of Muran, justly famous for her beauty, if she be
M---- M----, nun of the convent..., I not only disbelieve that Murray ever
had her, but I am sure she was never the French ambassador's mistress. If
he knew her it could only have been at the grating, where I really cannot
say what happens."

Righelini, who was an honourable and spirited man, answered me coldly
that the English ambassador was a man of his word, and that he had the
story from his own lips.

"If Mr. Murray," he continued, "had not told it me under the seal of