where she had
to disembark. With a modest pressure of one of her soft hands on mine,
she thanked me for the trouble I had taken in her behalf, begging me to
maintain my cordial feelings toward her, and assuring me that she prized
our friendship among the great good fortunes of her life. I left her
gondola, and reached Venice by another boat, considerably further gone
in love, but with my brain confused and labouring. Love and the curious
story I had heard kept me on the stretch.

A week or more passed before I saw her again. Yet I was always anxious
to meet her, and to hear how she had managed with those sharpers. At
last she showed herself one morning in her workroom; and while I was
passing along by my open window, she threw a paper tied to a pebble into
the room; then disappeared. I picked the missive up, and read the
scroll, of which the purport was to this effect: "She had to pay a visit
to a friend after dinner; her husband had given his permission; could I
meet her at the former hour, and at the former _ponte storto_? There I
should see a gondola waiting with the former ensign of the handkerchief.
She begged me to jump into the boat; for she was sorely pressed to tell
me something." I went accordingly, and found my lady at the rendezvous.
She seemed more beautiful than I had ever seen her, because her face
wore a certain look of cheerfulness which was not usual to it. She
ordered the gondolier, who was not the same as on the previous occasion,
to take a circuit by the Grand Canal, and afterwards to land her in a
certain _rio_ at Santa Margherita. Then she turned to me and said that I
was a famous prophet of events to come. From her bosom she drew forth
another note and handed it to me. It was written in the same hand as the
first. The caricature of passion was the same. I, who was not I,
thanked her for the portrait; vowed that I kept it continually before my
eyes or next my heart. I, who was not I, complained loudly that she had
deserted the window; I was miserable, yet I comforted myself by thinking
that she kept apart from prudent motives. I, who was not I, had no
doubts of her kindness; as a proof of this, being obliged to wait for a
draft, in order to meet certain payments, and the draft not having yet
arrived, I, who was not I, begged for the loan of twenty sequins, to
discharge my obligations. I promised to repay them religiously within
the month. She might give the money to the bearer, a person known to m