"'I am,' he began, 'the son of Roman parents. My father, steward of the immense possessions of Cardinal M------, by the advice of his Eminence, sent me to a Roman seminary at the age of fifteen, to embrace the ecclesiastical career. For two years, contrary to my inclination, I was compelled to continue that detested life. For at first Father Petrucchio, the director of the seminary, showed me a good deal of sympathy, much to the vexation of my companions, who did not fail to be envious of my good fortune. The Father sometimes took me out with him to walk. These promenades with Petrucchio, in themselves somewhat tedious, appeared less so when I accompanied him to the convent of St. Francis, to visit the nuns. There the lady abbess and the nuns, pleased, I suppose, with my external appearance, used to compliment me and load me with attentions. The abbess, all-powerful over the director, obtained, without difficulty, that I should be employed in the religious service of the convent as assistant to the old priest who officiated for the nuns. I was not long in discovering that the abbess had conceived a passion for me, and I became her too docile favorite. For several months things went on thus. Under one pretense or the other, I was hardly ever seen in the seminary. I had the support of the director, so I could do just what I liked, and he was managed by the abbess, who, on that condition, left him certain licenses in her convent. I myself, inclined to any thing but a seminary, was from boyhood passionately fond of hunting, and any adventure that required boldness; and thus, during my excursions in the neighborhood of Guido Castle, I had become acquainted with the subterranean passage we have just left, and frequently I have explored with torches its most hidden recesses. Thus, indeed, I found a way of communicating with the convent, and made use of it to introduce myself there at all hours, and by no means always at the invitation of the abbess. The history of her jealousy would be too long; cunning as I had been, she had not failed to discover my partiality for certain younger sisters, and many a time I have found her in such a towering rage as to make me tremble at her. The enormities that I witnessed in that den of iniquity can not be recounted now. Many lives in the bud, or just unfolded, were there cut short! Things happened at which any pious soul would shudder, I, ashamed of myself, resolved to leave that pestilential place, never to return to it again. But I was doomed to pay the penalty of my complicity in so much abomination, for that old witch, the promoter of all licentiousness, appeared to have guessed my intention of flying, and did not give me time to accomplish my resolve. She one day said to me, "Tito, go down to the subterranean passage and bring me some torches; I have been asked for some for a midnight procession." I had a presentiment of misfortune; but there flashed