"Tell me," I added, "what I can do to make you happy; for I wish to
possess you, but first to shew my deserts."

"Make me happy, and I will yield to your desires, for I love you."

"Tell me what I can do."

"You can draw me out of the poverty and misery which overwhelm me. I live
with my mother, who is a good woman, but devout to the point of
superstition; she will damn my soul in her efforts to save it. She finds
fault with my keeping myself clean, because I have to touch myself when I
wash, and that might give rise to evil desires.

"If you had given me the money you made me win in the lottery as a simple
alms she would have made me refuse it, because you might have had
intentions. She allows me to go by myself to mass because our confessor
told her she might do so; but I dare not stay away a minute beyond the
time, except on feast days, when I am allowed to pray in the church for
two or three hours. We can only meet here, but if you wish to soften my
lot in life you can do so as follows:

"A fine young man, who is a hairdresser, and bears an excellent
character, saw me at Momolo's a fortnight ago, and met me at the church
door next day and gave me a letter. He declared himself my lover, and
said that if I could bring him a dowry of four hundred crowns, he could
open a shop, furnish it, and marry me.

"'I am poor,' I answered, 'and I have only a hundred crowns in charity
tickets, which my confessor keeps for me.' Now I have two hundred crowns,
for if I marry, my mother will willingly give me her share of the money