all dine in Venice, and I undertake
to defray all expenses."

We arrived in Venice the next day at ten o'clock, and I took the two
women to Castello, to a house the first floor of which was empty. I left
them there, and provided with the deed signed by the abbe I went to dine
with my three friends, to whom I said that I had been to Chiozza on
important business. After dinner, I called upon the lawyer, Marco de
Lesse, who told me that if the mother presented a petition to the
President of the Council of Ten, she would immediately be invested with
power to take her daughter away with all the furniture in the house,
which she could send wherever she pleased. I instructed him to have the
petition ready, saying that I would come the next morning with the
mother, who would sign it in his presence.

I brought the mother early in the morning, and after she had signed the
petition we went to the Boussole, where she presented it to the President
of the Council. In less than a quarter of an hour a bailiff was ordered
to repair to the house of the priest with the mother, and to put her in
possession of her daughter, and of all the furniture, which she would
immediately take away.

The order was carried into execution to the very letter. I was with the
mother in a gondola as near as possible to the house, and I had provided
a large boat in which the sbirri stowed all the furniture found on the
premises. When it was all done, the daughter was brought to the gondola,
and she was extremely surprised to see me. Her mother kissed her, and
told her that I would be her husband the very next day. She answered that
she was delighted, and that nothing had been left in her tyrant's house
except his bed and his clothes.

When we reached Castello, I ordered the furniture to be brought out of
the boat; we had dinner, and I told the three women that they must go
back to Lusia, where I would join them as soon as I had settled all my
affairs. I spent the afternoon gaily with my intended. She told us that
the abbe was dressing when the bailiff presented the order of the Council
of Ten, with injunctions to allow its free execution under penalty of
death; that the abbe finished his toilet, went out to say his mass, and
that everything had been done without the slightest opposition. "I was
told," she added, "that my mother was waiting for me in the gondola, but
I did not expect to find you, and I never suspected that you were at the
bottom of the wh