“How about Signora Maria?” said the jealous sister.

“As Signora Maria is going to be married,” I replied, “she must not be present at any festivity without her future husband.”

The mother applauded this decision of mine, and sly Mariuccia pretended to feel mortified.  I turned to Momolo and begged him to ask Mariuccia’s future husband to meet me at supper, by which I pleased her mother greatly.

I felt very tired, and having nothing to keep me after seeing Mariuccia, I begged the company to excuse me, and after wishing them a good appetite I left them.

I walked out next morning at an early hour.  I had no need of going into the church, which I reached at seven o’clock, for Mariuccia saw me at some distance off and followed me, and we were soon alone together in the little room, which love and voluptuous pleasure had transmuted into a sumptuous place.  We would gladly have talked to each other, but as we had only an hour before us, we set to without even taking off our clothes.  After the last kiss which ended the third assault, she told me that she was to be married on the eve of Shrove Tuesday, and that all had been arranged by her confessor.  She also thanked me for having asked Momolo to invite her intended.

“When shall we see each other again, my angel?”

“On Sunday, the eve of my wedding, we shall be able to spend four hours together.”

“Delightful!  I promise you that when you leave me you will be in such a state that the caresses of your husband won’t hurt you.”

She smiled and departed, and I threw myself on the bed where I rested for a good hour.

As I was going home I met a carriage and four going at a great speed.  A footman rode in front of the carriage, and within it I saw a young nobleman.  My attention was arrested by the blue ribbon on his breast.  I gazed at him, and he called out my name and had the carriage stopped.  I was extremely surprised when I found it was Lord O’Callaghan, whom I had known at Paris at his mother’s, the Countess of Lismore, who was separated from her husband, and was the kept mistress of M. de St. Aubin, the unworthy successor of the good and virtuous Fenelon in the archbishopric of Cambrai.  However, the archbishop owed his promotion to the fact that he was a bastard of the Duc d’Orleans, the French Regent.

Lord O’Callaghan was a fine-looking young man, with wit and talent, but the slave of his unbridled passions and of every species of vice.  I knew that if he were lord in name he was not so in fortune, and I was astonished to see him driving such a handsome carriage, and still more so at his blue ribbon.  In a few words he told me that he was going to dine with the Pretender, but that he would sup at home.  He invited me to come to supper, and I accepted.

After dinner I took a short walk, and then went to enliven myself at the theatre, where I saw Momolo’s girls strutting about with Costa; afterwards I went to Lord O’Callaghan, and was pleasantly surprised to meet the poet Poinsinet.  He was young, short, ugly, full of poetic fire, a wit, and dramatist.  Five or six years later the poor fellow fell into the Guadalquivir and was drowned.  He had gone to Madrid in the hope of making his fortune.  As I had known him at Paris I addressed him as an old acquaintance.