Volume VI Part 56 (1/2)

This was as h she did not love me yet I had only to wait patiently, and I resolved to follow her advice I had reached an age which knows nothing of the iave her a tender eo I asked her if she were in need of money

This question male her blush, and she said I had better ask her aunt, as in the next room

I went in, and was somewhat astonished to find the aunt seated between torthy Capuchins, ere talking small talk to her while she worked at her needle At a little distance three young girls sat sewing

The aunt would have risen to welcoly congratulated her on her company She smiled back, but the Capuchins sat as firlance

I took a chair and sat down beside her

She was near her fiftieth year, though soain; her ood and honest, and her features bore the traces of the beauty that tih I a ht the obstinate way in which they stayed little less than an insult True they were oats' beards and dirty frocks, and consequently were liable to the same desires as I; but for all that I found the the lady, and they knew it; monks are adepts at such calculations

I have travelled all over Europe, but France is the only country in which I saw a decent and respectable clergy

At the end of a quarter of an hour I could contain er, and told the aunt that I wished to say soht the two satyrs would have taken the hint, but I counted without my host The aunt arose, however, and took me into the next room

I asked my question as delicately as possible, and she replied,--

”Alas! I have only too great a need of twenty ducats (about eighty francs) to pay ave her the rateful, but I left her before she could express her feelings

Here I must tell my readers (if I ever have any) of an event which took place on that sa in entleman who said he kneished to speak to h his face was not wholly unknown to me I could not recollect who he was

He was tall, thin and wretched,plainly in his every feature; his beard was long, his head shaven, his robe a dingy brown, and bound about hi a rosary and a dirty handkerchief In the left hand he bore a basket, and in the right a long stick; his form is still before me, but I think of hi in the last state of desperation; alth ”I think I have seen you before, and yet ”

”I will soon tell youto eat, for I a but bad soup for the last few days”

”Certainly; go downstairs and have your dinner, and then come back to me; you can't eat and speak at the saave instructions that I was not to be left alone with hiht to know hied to hear his story

In three quarters of an hour he cah fever

”Sit down,” said I, ”and speak freely”

”My naentleman of Padua, and one of my most intimate friends twenty-five years before He was provided with a s towards pleasure and the exercise of satire He laughed at the police and the cheated husbands, indulged in Venus and Bacchus to excess, sacrificed to the God of pederasty, and galy, but when I knew hi story: