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escape the lynx-eye of her sour mamma, was good enough to make it
exceedingly good; so good, indeed, that, what with the emptiness of
my stomach, it produced a kind of convulsion, which kept me awake
the whole of the night.

In this state of gentle inebriation, I felt my intellectual
faculties strangely invigorated; wrote poetry, philosophized, and
prayed till morning with feelings of real pleasure. I then became
completely exhausted, threw myself upon my bed, and, spite of the
gnats that were continually sucking my blood, I slept an hour or two
in profound rest.

I can hardly describe the peculiar and pleasing exaltation of mind
which continued for nights together, and I left no means untried to
secure the same means of continuing it. With this view I still
refused to touch a mouthful of dinner, even when I was in no want of
paper, merely in order to obtain my magic beverage for the evening.

How fortunate I thought myself when I succeeded; not unfrequently
the coffee was not made by the gentle Angiola; and it was always
vile stuff from her mother's hands. In this last case, I was sadly
put out of humour, for instead of the electrical effect on my
nerves, it made me wretched, weak, and hungry; I threw myself down
to sleep, but was unable to close an eye. Upon these occasions I
complained bitterly to Angiola, the jailer's daughter, and one day,
as if she had been in fault, I scolded her so sharply that the poor
girl began to weep, sobbing out, "Indeed, sir, I never deceived
anybody, and yet everybody calls me a deceitful little mix."

"Everybody! Oh then, I see I am not the only one driven to
distraction by your vile slops."

"I do not mean to say that, sir. Ah, if you only knew; if I dared
to tell you all that my poor, wretched heart--"

"Well, don't cry so! What is all this ado? I beg your pardon, you
see, if I scolded you. Indeed, I believe you would not, you could
not, make me such vile stuff as this."

"Dear me! I am not crying about that, sir."

"You are not!" and I felt my self-love not a little mortified,
though I forced a smile. "Are you crying, then, because I scolded
you, and yet not about the coffee?"

"Yes, indeed, sir?"

"Ah! then who called you a little deceitful one before?"

"HE did, sir."

"HE did; and who is HE?"

"My lover, sir;" and she hid her face in her little hands.

Afterwards she ingenuously intrusted to my keeping, and I could not
well betray her, a little serio-comic sort of pastoral romance,
which really interested me.



CHAPTER XXIX.



From that day forth, I know not why, I became the adviser and
confidant of this young girl, who returned and conversed with me for
hours. She at first said, "You are so good, sir, that I feel just
the same when I am here as if I were your own daughter."

"That is a very poor compliment," replied I, dropping her hand; "I
am hardly yet thirty-two, and you look upon me as if I were an old

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