confidence I have in the protection of my blessed patroness, whom they
think very much like me in the face." It was nothing but a beautiful face
created by the fancy of the painter, but my dear little wife was so
lovely that beauty was sure to be like her.

She said, likewise, that the nun who taught her French had offered her
fifty sequins for the ring on account of the likeness between her and the
portrait of the saint, but not out of veneration for her patroness, whom
she turned into ridicule as she read her life. She thanked me for the ten
sequins I had sent her, because, her mother having given them to her in
the presence of several of the sisters, she was thus enabled to spend a
little money without raising the suspicions of those curious and
inquisitive nuns. She liked to offer trifling presents to the other
boarders, and the money allowed her to gratify that innocent taste.

"My mother," added she, "praised your piety very highly; she is delighted
with your feelings of devotion. Never mention again, I beg, the name of
my unworthy brother."

For five or six weeks her letters were full of the blessed St. Catherine,
who caused her to tremble with fear every time she found herself
compelled to trust the ring to the mystic curiosity of the elderly nuns,
who, in order to see the likeness better through their spectacles,
brought it close to their eyes, and rubbed the enamel. "I am in constant
fear," C---- C---- wrote, "of their pressing the invisible blue spot by
chance. What would become of me, if my patroness, jumping up, discovered
to their eyes a face--very divine, it is true, but which is not at all
like that of a saint? Tell me, what could I do in such a case?"

One month after the second arrest of P---- C----, the jeweller, who had
taken my security for the ring, called on me for payment of the bill. I
made an arrangement with him; and on condition of my giving him twenty
sequins, and leaving him every right over the debtor, he exonerated me.
From his prison the impudent P---- C---- harassed me with his cowardly
entreaties for alms and assistance.

Croce was in Venice, and engrossed a great share of the general
attention. He kept a fine house, an excellent table, and a faro bank with
which he emptied the pockets of his dupes. Foreseeing what would happen
sooner or later, I had abstained from visiting him at his house, but we
were friendly whenever we met. His wife having been delivered of a boy,
Croce asked