ry that
seemed to invest her had departed, and I saw before me the loveliest of
women, and felt my senses inflamed. In a moment the resolution was
formed that she must be mine.

"While I was deliberating whether I should descend and approach her, or
whether before I ventured on such a step it would not be better to
obtain information regarding her, a door opened in the convent wall,
through which there advanced a Carmelite monk. The sound of his
approach roused the lady, and I saw her advance with hurried steps
towards him. He drew from his bosom a paper, which she eagerly grasped,
while a vivid color instantaneously suffused her countenance.

"At this moment I was called from the window by the arrival of my usual
evening visitor. I carefully avoided approaching the spot again as I
had no desire to share my conquest with another. For a whole hour I was
obliged to endure this painful constraint before I could succeed in
freeing myself from my importunate guest, and when I hastened to the
window all had disappeared.

"The garden was empty when I entered it; no vessel of any kind was
visible in the canal; no trace of people on any side; I neither knew
whence she had come nor whither she bad gone. While I was looking round
me in all directions I observed something white upon the ground. On
drawing near I found it was a piece of paper folded in the shape of a
note. What could it be but the letter which the Carmelite had brought?
'Happy discovery!' I exclaimed; 'this will reveal the whole secret, and
make me master of her fate.'

"The letter was sealed with a sphinx, had no superscription, and was
written in cyphers; this, however, did not discourage me, for I have
some knowledge of this mode of writing. I copied it hastily, as there
was every reason to expect that she would soon miss it and return in
search of it. If she should not find it she would regard its loss as an
evidence that the garden was resorted to by different persons, and such
a discovery might easily deter her from visiting it again. And what
worse fortune could attend my hopes.

"That which I had conjectured actually took place, and I had scarcely
ended my copy when she reappeared with her former companion, anxiously
intent on the search. I attached the note to a tile which I had
detached from the roof, and dropped it at a spot which she would pass.
Her gracefully expressed joy at finding it rewarded me for my
generosity. She examined it in every part