lighting a night-lamp, bade them good night and retired. Then my
two beauties, their door once locked, sat down on the sofa and completed
their night toilet, which, in that fortunate climate, is similar to the
costume of our first mother. Lucrezia, knowing that I was waiting to come
in, told her sister to lie down on the side towards the window, and the
virgin, having no idea that she was exposing her most secret beauties to
my profane eyes, crossed the room in a state of complete nakedness.
Lucrezia put out the lamp and lay down near her innocent sister.

Happy moments which I can no longer enjoy, but the sweet remembrance of
which death alone can make me lose! I believe I never undressed myself as
quickly as I did that evening.

I open the door and fall into the arms of my Lucrezia, who says to her
sister, "It is my angel, my love; never mind him, and go to sleep."

What a delightful picture I could offer to my readers if it were possible
for me to paint voluptuousness in its most enchanting colours! What
ecstasies of love from the very onset! What delicious raptures succeed
each other until the sweetest fatigue made us give way to the soothing
influence of Morpheus!

The first rays of the sun, piercing through the crevices of the shutters,
wake us out of our refreshing slumbers, and like two valorous knights who
have ceased fighting only to renew the contest with increased ardour, we
lose no time in giving ourselves up to all the intensity of the flame
which consumes us.

"Oh, my beloved Lucrezia! how supremely happy I am! But, my darling, mind
your sister; she might turn round and see us."

"Fear nothing, my life; my sister is kind, she loves me, she pities me;
do you not love me, my dear Angelique? Oh! turn round, see how happy your
sister is, and know what felicity awaits you when you own the sway of
love."

Angelique, a young maiden of seventeen summers, who must have suffered
the torments of Tantalus during the night, and who only wishes for a
pretext to shew that she has forgiven her sister, turns round, and
covering her sister with kisses, confesses that she has not closed her
eyes through the night.

"Then forgive likewise, darling Angelique, forgive him who loves me, and
whom I adore," says Lucrezia.

Unfathomable power of the god who conquers all human beings!

"Angelique hates me," I say, "I dare not...."

"No, I do not hate you!" answers the charming girl.

"Kiss her, dearest," says Lucrezia