There were six of us at table, and we all talked and laughed with the exception of the fair Clementine.  This was the young countess who had already made an impression on me.  She only spoke when she was obliged to do so, and her words were always accompanied with a blush; but as I had no other way of getting a sight of her beautiful eyes, I asked her a good many questions.  However, she blushed so terribly that I thought I must be distressing her, and I left her in peace, hoping to become better acquainted with her.

At last I was taken to my apartment and left there.  The windows were glazed and curtained as in the diningroom, but Clairmont came and told me that he could not unpack my trunks as there were no locks to anything and should not care to take the responsibility.  I thought he was right, and I went to ask my friend about it.

“There’s not a lock or a key,” said he, “in the whole castle, except in the cellar, but everything is safe for all that.  There are no robbers at St. Angelo, and if there were they would not dare to come here.”

“I daresay, my dear count, but you know’ it is my business to suppose robbers everywhere.  My own valet might take the opportunity of robbing me, and you see I should have to keep silence if I were robbed.”

“Quite so, I feel the force of your argument.  Tomorrow morning a locksmith shall put locks and keys to your doors, and you will be the only person in the castle who is proof against thieves.”

I might have replied in the words of Juvenal, ’Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator’, but I should have mortified him.  I told Clairmont to leave my trunks alone till next day, and I went out with Count A——­ B——­ and his sisters-in-law to take a walk in the town.

Count Ambrose and his better-half stayed in the castle; the good mother would never leave her nursling.  Clementine was eighteen, her married sister being four years older.  She took my arm, and my friend offered his to Eleanore.

“We will go and see the beautiful penitent,” said the count.

I asked him who the beautiful penitent was, and he answered, without troubling himself about his sisters-in-law,

“She was once a Lais of Milan, and enjoyed such a reputation for beauty that not only all the flower of Milan but people from the neighbouring towns were at her feet.  Her hall-door was opened and shut a hundred times in a day, and even then she was not able to satisfy the desires aroused.  At last an end came to what the old and the devout called a scandal.  Count Firmian, a man of learning and wit, went to Vienna, and on his departure received orders to have her shut up in a convent.  Our august Marie Therese cannot pardon mercenary beauty, and the count had no choice but to have the fair sinner imprisoned.  She was told that she had done amiss, and dealt wickedly; she was obliged to make a general confession, and was condemned to a life-long penance in this convent.  She was absolved by Cardinal Pozzobonelli, Archbishop of Milan, and he then confirmed her, changing the name of Therese, which she had received at the baptismal font, to Mary Magdalen, thus shewing her how she should save her soul by following the example of her new patroness, whose wantonness had hitherto been her pattern.