shaking me
gently. I opened my eyes, and I was surprised to see the second daughter.

"What do you want?" I said, coldly.

"I want you to take pity on us, and shelter us in your house for a few
days longer. I will be very grateful. My sister has told me all, you are
displeased with her, but you must forgive her, for her heart is not her
own. She is in love with an Italian who is in prison for debt."

"And I suppose you are in love with someone else?"

"No, I am not."

"Could you love me?"

She lowered her eyes, and pressed my hand gently. I drew her towards me,
and embraced her, and as I felt her kisses answer mine, I said,--

"You have conquered."

"My name is Victoire."

"I like it, and I will prove the omen a true one."

Victoire, who was tender and passionate, made me spend two delicious
hours, which compensated me for my bad quarter of an hour of the night
before.

When our exploits were over, I said,--

"Dearest Victoire, I am wholly throe. Let your mother be brought here as
soon as she is free. Here are twenty guineas for you."

She did not expect anything, and the agreeable surprise made her in an
ecstasy; she could not speak, but her heart was full of happiness. I too
was happy, and I believed that a great part of my happiness was caused by
the knowledge that I had done a good deed. We are queer creatures all of
us, whether we are bad or good. From that moment I gave my servants
orders to lay the table for eight persons every day, and told them that I
was only at home to Goudar. I spent money madly, and felt that I was
within a measurable distance of poverty.

At noon the mother came in a sedan-chair, and went to bed directly. I
went to see her, and did not evince any surprise when she began to thank
me for my noble generosity. She wanted me to suppose that she thought I
had given her daughters forty guineas for nothing, and I let her enjoy
her hypocrisy.

In the evening I took them to Covent Garden, where the castrato Tenducci
surprised me by introducing me to his wife, of whom he had two children.
He laughed at people who said that a castrato could not procreate. Nature
had made him a monster that he might remain a man; he was born triorchis,
and as only two of the seminal glands had been destroyed the remaining
one was sufficient to endow him with virility.

When I got back to my small seraglio I supped merrily with the five
nymphs, and spent a delicious night with Victoire, who was overj