more if I were decently dressed;
however, as you like it better, I will stop in bed."

The country-woman came in at that moment, and gave her the abbess' letter
which her nephew had just brought from Chamberi. She read it and gave it
to me. The abbess told her that she would send two lay-sisters to bring
her back to the convent, and that as she had recovered her health she
could come on-foot, and thus save money which could be spent in better
ways. She added that as the bishop was away, and she was unable to send
the lay-sisters without his permission, they could not start for a week
or ten days. She ordered her, under pain of the major excommunication,
never to leave her room, never to speak to any man, not even to the
master of the house, and to have nothing to do with anybody except with
the woman. She ended by saying that she was going to have a mass said for
the repose of the departed sister's soul.

"I am obliged to you for having shewn me this letter, but be pleased to
tell me if I may visit you for the next week or ten days, without doing
hurt to your conscience; for I must tell you I am a man. I have only
stopped in this place because of the lively interest with which you have
inspired me, but if you have the least objection to receive me on account
of the singular excommunication with which you are threatened, I will
leave Aix tomorrow. Speak."

"Sir, our abbess is lavish of these thunders, and I have already incurred
the excommunication with which she threatens me; but I hope it will not
be ratified by God, as my fault has made me happy and not miserable. I
will be sincere with you; your visits are my only joy, and that joy is
doubled when you tell me you like to come. But if you can answer my
question without a breach of confidence, I should like to know for whom
you took me the first time you saw me; you cannot imagine how you
astonished and frightened me. I have never felt such kisses as those you
lavished on me, but they cannot increase my sin as I was not a consenting
party, and you told me yourself that you thought you were kissing
another."

"I will satisfy your curiosity. I think I can do so as you are aware by
this time that the flesh is weak, or rather stronger than the spirit, and
that it compels the strongest intellects to commit faults against right
reason. You shall hear the history of an amour that lasted for two years
with the fairest and the best of all the nuns of Venice."

"Tell me al