authorities wanted all the lovers of play to
lose their money at the opera, where the bankers were mostly noblemen
from Venice.

I left the city on horseback in the evening and in very bad weather, but
nothing could have kept me back, because early the next morning I
expected a letter from my dear prisoner. I had only travelled six miles
from Padua when my horse fell, and I found my left leg caught under it.
My boots were soft ones, and I feared I had hurt myself. The postillion
was ahead of me, but hearing the noise made by the fall he came up and
disengaged me; I was not hurt, but my horse was lame. I immediately took
the horse of the postillion, to which I was entitled, but the insolent
fellow getting hold of the bit refused to let me proceed. I tried to make
him understand that he was wrong; but, far from giving way to my
arguments, he persisted in stopping me, and being in a great hurry to
continue my journey I fired one of my pistols in his face, but without
touching him. Frightened out of his wits, the man let go, and I galloped
off. When I reached the Dolo, I went straight to the stables, and I
myself saddled a horse which a postillion, to whom I gave a crown,
pointed out to me as being excellent. No one thought of being astonished
at my other postillion having remained behind, and we started at full
speed. It was then one o'clock in the morning; the storm had broken up
the road, and the night was so dark that I could not see anything within
a yard ahead of me; the day was breaking when we arrived in Fusina.

The boatmen threatened me with a fresh storm; but setting everything at
defiance I took a four-oared boat, and reached my dwelling quite safe but
shivering with cold and wet to the skin. I had scarcely been in my room
for a quarter of an hour when the messenger from Muran presented herself
and gave me a letter, telling me that she would call for the answer in
two hours. That letter was a journal of seven pages, the faithful
translation of which might weary my readers, but here is the substance of
it:

After the interview with M. de Bragadin, the father of C---- C---- had gone
home, had his wife and daughter to his room, and enquired kindly from the
last where she had made my acquaintance. She answered that she had seen
me five or six times in her brother's room, that I had asked her whether
she would consent to be my wife, and that she had told me that she was
dependent upon her father and mother. The fa