"In the next house to that of these ladies, in a furnished apartment, lodges an Aragonese adventuress. You may see her, while others sleep, admiring in a glass those charms on which she relies, and which have gained for her to-day a conquest to be proud of: like a good general, she studies her positions for attack; and she has just discovered a new one, which will finish her campaign with her lover to-morrow. He is well worth all the pains she can take to secure him, and she is well aware of his promising qualities. To-day, for instance, one of her creditors calling to remind her of an account, which he insists on having settled in cash: 'Wait, my good friend,' said she; 'wait but for a few days longer: I am on the point of concluding a most advantageous arrangement with one of the principal persons in the Customs.'" "I need not ask you," said Leandro, "how a certain cavalier, whom I perceive at this moment, has been passing his day: he appears to be a complete letter-writer. What enormous quantities I behold on his table!" "Yes," replied the Demon; "and, what is most amusing, all these letters are alike in their contents. He is writing to all his absent friends an account of an adventure which befel him this afternoon. He is in love with a widow of thirty, charming and discreet; he pays to her devotions which she does not despise; he proposes for her hand, and she consents to yield it without hesitation. While preparations are making for their nuptials, he has permission to visit her without ceremony. He went to her house to-day after dinner, and as he chanced to meet with no one to announce his coming, he entered the lady's apartment, where he found her stretched on a couch, _en déshabille_, or, to speak more correctly, almost naked. She was sleeping profoundly. What lover could resist the temptation thus offered to his eyes? He approaches her softly, and steals a gentle kiss. She starts, exclaiming as she wakes, 'What, again! I beseech you, Ambrose, leave me to repose.' "The cavalier, as an honourable man, made up his mind on the instant to renounce all pretensions to the widow. He therefore immediately left the apartment; and meeting the servant at the door: 'Ambrose,' said he, 'stay! your mistress prays you to indulge her with a brief repose.' [Illustration: the lover about to kiss the widow] "Two doors beyond the house of this cavalier, I perceive an original of a husband, who is sleeping tranquilly,--lulled to rest by reproaches with which his wife is upbraiding him for having passed the entire day from home. She would be still more bitter against her spouse, did she know how he had spent his day." "It has been most probably occupied in some amorous adventure?" said Zambullo. "You have guessed it," replied Asmodeus; "and shall hear the detail.