taken place, and I could not honestly hesitate to assure the poor countess that it was only the first token of a constant and true love.  She believed it, or she feigned to believe it, and perhaps I myself fancied it was true—­for the moment.  When we had become calm again, she told me the fearful state to which they were reduced, her brothers walking barefooted in the streets, and her father having positively no bread to give them.

“Then you have not any lover?”

“What? a lover!  Where could I find a man courageous enough to be my lover in such a house as this?  Am I a woman to sell myself to the first comer for the sum of thirty sous?  There is not a man in Venice who would think me worth more than that, seeing me in such a place as this.  Besides, I was not born for prostitution.”

Such a conversation was not very cheerful; she was weeping, and the spectacle of her sadness, joined to the picture of misery which surrounded me, was not at all the thing to excite love.  I left her with a promise to call again, and I put twelve sequins in her hand.  She was surprised at the amount; she had never known herself so rich before.  I have always regretted I did not give her twice as much.

The next day P——­ C——­ called on me, and said cheerfully that his mother had given permission to her daughter to go to the opera with him, that the young girl was delighted because she had never been there before, and that, if I liked, I could wait for them at some place where they would meet me.

“But does your sister know that you intend me to join you?”

“She considers it a great pleasure.”

“Does your mother know it?”

“No; but when she knows it she will not be angry, for she has a great esteem for you.”

“In that case I will try to find a private box.”

“Very well; wait for us at such a place.”

The scoundrel did not speak of his letters of exchange again, and as he saw that I was no longer paying my attentions to his mistress, and that I was in love with his sister, he had formed the fine project of selling her to me.  I pitied the mother and the daughter who had confidence in such a man; but I had not the courage to resist the temptation.  I even went so far as to persuade myself that as I loved her it was my duty to accept the offer, in order to save her from other snares; for if I had declined her brother might have found some other man less scrupulous, and I could not bear the idea.  I thought that in my company her innocence ran no risk.

I took a box at the St. Samuel Opera, and I was waiting for them at the appointed place long before the time.  They came at last, and the sight of my young friend delighted me.  She was elegantly masked, and her brother wore his uniform.  In order not to expose the lovely girl to being recognized on account of her brother, I made them get into my gondola.  He insisted upon being landed near the house of his mistress, who was ill, he said, and he added that he would soon join us in our box.  I was astonished that C——­ C——­ did not shew any surprise or repugnance at remaining alone with me in the gondola; but I did not think the conduct of her brother extraordinary, for it was evident that it was all arranged beforehand in his mind.