mmon interest I can
but approve your resolution."

She related the affair of the treacherous crack in the partition, and
added,

"It is already repaired, and there is no longer any fear in that quarter.
I heard of it from a young boarder whom I love dearly, and who is much
attached to me. I am not curious to know her name, and she has never
mentioned it to me."

"Now, darling angel, tell me whether my happiness will be postponed."

"Yes, but only for twenty-four hours; the new professed sister has
invited me to supper in her room, and you must understand I cannot invent
any plausible excuse for refusing her invitation."

"You would not, then, tell her in confidence the very legitimate obstacle
which makes me wish that the new sisters never take supper?"

"Certainly not: we never trust anyone so far in a convent. Besides,
dearest, such an invitation cannot be declined unless I wish to gain a
most bitter enemy."

"Could you not say that you are ill?"

"Yes; but then the visits!"

"I understand; if you should refuse, the escape might be suspected."

"The escape! impossible; here no one admits the possibility of breaking
out of the convent."

"Then you are the only one able to perform that miracle?"

"You may be sure of that; but, as is always the case, it is gold which
performs that miracle."

"And many others, perhaps."

"Oh! the time has gone by for them! But tell me, my love, where will you
wait for me to-morrow, two hours after the setting of the sun?"

"Could I not wait for you at your casino?"

"No, because my lover will take me himself to Venice."

"Your lover?"

"Yes, himself."

"It is not possible."

"Yet it is true."

"I can wait for you in St. John and St. Paul's Square behind the pedestal
of the statue of Bartholomew of Bergamo."

"I have never seen either the square or the statue except in engravings;
it is enough, however, and I will not fail. Nothing but very stormy
weather could prevent me from coming to a rendezvous for which my heart
is panting."

"And if the weather were bad?"

"Then, dearest, there would be nothing lost; and you would come here
again in order to appoint another day."

I had no time to lose, for I had no casino. I took a second rower so as
to reach St. Mark's Square more rapidly, and I immediately set to work
looking for what I wanted. When a mortal is so lucky as to be in the good
graces of the god Plutus, and is not crackbrained, he is pretty sure to