Dupe that I was to believe this creature loved me! But ah! the happiness of those brief visits will never pass away from my memory. I found Despina as attractive in mind and manners as she was charming in person; she was a joyous donzella, who knew better the poems of Alfieri and Gorilla than the doggrel hymns of the Padri; and while we enjoyed our tête-à-tête in an arbour, Santugo kept watch, perched on the summit of the garden-wall. Often we cursed the villain notary who lent all his influence to crush the blossoms of so fair a flower: but at last my passion took a more noisy turn. By Santugo’s advice, I engaged all the improvisatori in the city to celebrate Despina. I mustered twenty with mandolins, twenty choristers, as many bell-ringers and scrapers on the viol, with all our regimental drums and cymbals. O, what a jovial company! Every other night we entertained the sisterhood with a grand serenade, making all Naples echo with bursts of joyous music; until the abbess, deeming her "commandery" disgraced by our clatter and chorussing, procured a guard of sbirri from the Bishop of Cosenza (whose palace unluckily stood in the adjoining street), and on the first night after this reinforcement we were greeted by a volley of blunderbuss-shot, which was within a hair’s-breadth of sending us all to the banks of the Styx. Three choristers were killed, and several wounded. Santugo escaped unhurt, but I was peppered with slugs so severely, that for the next two months I was confined to my apartments; and in the interval Despina took the veil! She either supposed I was dead of my wounds, or deemed me inconstant. Perhaps it was dire necessity, as the last day of her novitiate had expired; and, after a short residence at the house of the notary, to take a last view of the world (as the custom is), she returned to offer up her vows. All the bells of Naples were tolling on the occasion: several novices were to take the veil that day, and the fashionables flocked to the church of the Holy Spirit, as to some great festival of joy. "O, Madonna!" exclaimed poor Marco, beating his breast with true Italian energy, "will the bitter recollections of that infernal morning never pass away? The Princess of Squillaci, a damsel old in years, wickedness, and fashionable dissipation, was also to take the vows; and all the foolish city, from Portici on the east to Misenum on the west, held it as a day of universal joy.