I have said, that the room which I had chosen looked into the street wherein we lodged, and also that that street was very narrow. At first, I had hoped to draw something from this circumstance, having always entertained high ideas of the pleasures and agitations of making love across a street, and for the whole first night after our arrival, I amused myself with fancying some very beautiful lady, with some very horrible guardian, who would find means of conversing with me from the _jalousies_ on the other side. I was soon undeceived; a very little knowledge of the localities showing me that the windows opposite to my own were placed in the back of a row of houses, forming one side of the principal street, to which our own was parallel; and I had reason to believe that none but servants and inferior persons in general dwelt in those rooms, the windows of which might communicate with mine. This was a disappointment, and I thought no more of it till one evening, when I had been riding in the environs with the Chevalier de Montenero, who, in general, gave me about an hour of his society every day. The rest of his time was principally spent, I understood, in reading and writing, and in bringing to a conclusion some affairs of importance, which had accumulated during a long absence in the New World, where, my talkative landlady assured me, he had won high honours both as a statesman and a warrior. On the day which I speak of, however, we had been absent nearly three hours, and, returning somewhat heated, I threw myself down before the open window, with a book in my hand. How I happened to raise my eyes to the opposite houses, I know not; but doing so, I saw the fingers of a hand so fair, that it could belong to no servant, resting on the bars of the _jalousie_, while, at the same time, a very bright pair of eyes glittered through the aperture, apparently rather turned down the street, as if watching for the coming of some one. My own _jalousie_ was drawn for the sake of the shade, so that I could observe without being remarked; and, approaching the window, in a few minutes after, I saw a priest enter at a small door, just below the window, where the eyes were watching. I concluded that this was the father confessor, and I took care to see him depart; after which I partly opened my blind, and remarked, behind the one opposite, the same eyes I had before seen, but now evidently turned towards myself, and I determined not to lose, for lack of boldness, whatever good fortune should fall in my way.