And, pleased with my repentance, she gave me a look so expressive of forgiveness that, without being afraid of augmenting my guilt, I took my lips off her hand and I raised them to her half-open, smiling mouth.  Intoxicated with rapture, I passed so rapidly from a state of sadness to one of overwhelming cheerfulness that during our supper the advocate enjoyed a thousand jokes upon my toothache, so quickly cured by the simple remedy of a walk.  On the following day we dined at Velletri and slept in Marino, where, although the town was full of troops, we had two small rooms and a good supper.  I could not have been on better terms with my charming Roman; for, although I had received but a rapid proof of her regard, it had been such a true one—­such a tender one!  In the coach our eyes could not say much; but I was opposite to her, and our feet spoke a very eloquent language.

The advocate had told me that he was going to Rome on some ecclesiastical business, and that he intended to reside in the house of his mother-in-law, whom his wife had not seen since her marriage, two years ago, and her sister hoped to remain in Rome, where she expected to marry a clerk at the Spirito Santo Bank.  He gave me their address, with a pressing invitation to call upon them, and I promised to devote all my spare time to them.

We were enjoying our dessert, when my beautiful lady-love, admiring my snuff-box, told her husband that she wished she had one like it.

“I will buy you one, dear.”

“Then buy mine,” I said; “I will let you have it for twenty ounces, and you can give me a note of hand payable to bearer in payment.  I owe that amount to an Englishman, and I will give it him to redeem my debt.”

“Your snuff-box, my dear abbe, is worth twenty ounces, but I cannot buy it unless you agree to receive payment in cash; I should be delighted to see it in my wife’s possession, and she would keep it as a remembrance of you.”

His wife, thinking that I would not accept his offer, said that she had no objection to give me the note of hand.

“But,” exclaimed the advocate, “can you not guess the Englishman exists only in our friend’s imagination?  He would never enter an appearance, and we would have the snuff-box for nothing.  Do not trust the abbe, my dear, he is a great cheat.”

“I had no idea,” answered his wife, looking at me, “that the world contained rogues of this species.”

I affected a melancholy air, and said that I only wished myself rich enough to be often guilty of such cheating.

When a man is in love very little is enough to throw him into despair, and as little to enhance his joy to the utmost.  There was but one bed in the room where supper had been served, and another in a small closet leading out of the room, but without a door.  The ladies chose the closet, and the advocate retired to rest before me.  I bid the ladies good night as soon as they had gone to bed; I looked at my dear