some improvement to be made which would detain him the best part of next day, she had determined to admit a visit from him; but that in order to keep the matter a secret from the servants, she desired him to come at midnight; that she would fix a silken ladder at her room window which looked into the garden, whence he might easily ascend into the anti-room, where he would find the door open that led into her own room. The reader will naturally conceive the transports which this delicious billet excited in the worthy Cardinal. He danced, and leaped and capered about for joy, rang the bell, gave contradictory orders, and convinced his valet that he was mad. He had the sense however to direct a suit of his finest linen to be prepared, and to countermand the order for his carriage, for he bethought himself he had better go privately. How tedious did the hours, which intervened before the time of appointment, appear to our ardent lover, and when the clock struck eleven he could no longer wait. It was a good distance, he must be there in time, not a second too late; therefore off he set after taking some precautions against his sacred person being discovered. He arrives, panting with love and hope; the burning of Mongibello could scarcely exceed the conflagration within him. He gets to the garden-gate. One cannot think of every thing. The Princess in her flurry had forgotten to order the garden-gate to be left open. What was to be done? The wall was not high; but must his Eminence endanger his sacred person? Love, however, the sovereign ruler, who makes even cowards heroes, animated him. It was dreadfully dark; but luckily, in feeling for the height of the wall, the anxious lover found an aperture in it large enough to admit the foot: into this he stepped, gave a spring, and got to the top; and then slid down the other side, not however without losing his hat and cloak, which owing to the darkness of the night he could not find again, nor was he aware, for the same reason, how he was daubed with mortar and brick-dust. In this pickle, our Adonis made the best of his way to find the ladder, tumbling over orange-trees and rosebushes, to the manifest injury of his cassock, which began to hang about him in rags. At last he reached the ladder, seized hold of it, stopped, panted a while for breath, and then up he went. He had just got one leg through the window, when the two large folding doors of the apartment flew open, and fifteen or twenty servants with lighted torches in their hands presented themselves before him. [Illustration: 068]