balanced by the pleasure he took in the willingness I exprest of continuing a correspondence with him. The person whom I sent to him was a woman of an excellent penetration; and she assured me, in terms as plain as the station she was in would permit her to do to a mistress, that Lorenzo was not that disinterested lover we had believed him to be: she forbore, however, to express what it was she thought of him, till I had read his letter, the contents whereof are written in my heart, and never can be forgot; they were in this manner:
"THOUGH I might justly enough complain of your want of faith in my repeated assurances, that no change of circumstances should have the power to alter that indelible affection I had vowed; yet to prove how much beyond my own I prize your interest, I wish you all the happiness the marriage-bed can yield: nor do I envy Caprera the possession of your person, since you so transportingly assure me, that your heart is mine. You have been accustomed to utter nothing but sacred truth; if this is so, I should be the most unreasonable and ungrateful of my sex, not to be highly satisfied with my condition; for what may not the happy he, who rules the heart, command! I have been talking to your obliging messenger, and she thinks it not impossible that I might be admitted into your own house late at night, when all the family are in bed; you pretending an indisposition, to avoid lying with the count. I mention this method as the most safe one for your reputation; for though, doubtless, either of us would be welcome alone at our usual rendezvous; yet as you know they are people of a scrupulous virtue, and we used to meet on other terms than now we can be supposed to do, they might think the liberty they allowed me with Anziana a fault, if indulged with the wife of count Caprera: it will be just the same, if seen together in any other place. I
