ortant circumstance."

"Can you suppose that I would not have told you all about it, if I had
ever left the convent, even once? I came out of it two hours ago, for the
first time, and I was induced to take that step in the simplest, the most
natural manner."

"Tell me all about it, my love. I feel extremely curious."

"I am glad of it, and I would conceal nothing from you. You know how
dearly M---- M---- and I love each other. No intimacy could be more tender
than ours; you can judge of it by what I told you in my letters. Well,
two days ago, my dear friend begged the abbess and my aunt to allow me to
sleep in her room in the place of the lay-sister, who, having a very bad
cold, had carried her cough to the infirmary. The permission was granted,
and you cannot imagine our pleasure in seeing ourselves at liberty, for
the first time, to sleep in the same bed. To-day, shortly after you had
left the parlour, where you so much amused us, without our discovering
that the delightful Pierrot was our friend, my dear M---- M---- retired to
her room and I followed her. The moment we were alone she told me that
she wanted me to render her a service from which depended our happiness.
I need not tell you how readily I answered that she had only to name it.
Then she opened a drawer, and much to my surprise she dressed me in this
costume. She was laughing; and I did the same without suspecting the end
of the joke. When she saw me entirely metamorphosed into a nun, she told
me that she was going to trust me with a great secret, but that she
entertained no fear of my discretion. 'Let me tell you, clearest friend,'
she said to me, 'that I was on the point of going out of the convent, to
return only tomorrow morning. I have, however, just decided that you
shall go instead. You have nothing to fear and you do not require any
instructions, because I know that you will meet with no difficulty. In an
hour, a lay-sister will come here, I will speak a few words apart to her,
and she will tell you to follow her. You will go out with her through the
small gate and across the garden as far as the room leading out to the
low shore. There you will get into the gondola, and say to the gondolier
these words: 'To the casino.' You will reach it in five minutes; you will
step out and enter a small apartment, where you will find a good fire;
you will be alone, and you will wait.' 'For whom? I enquired. 'For
nobody. You need not know any more: you may only