The scholars did not leave the convent at all while their education lasted, but nothing was neglected which could amuse them, and their principal lessons were in dancing, singing, and reciting verses. In Carnival, the convent parlours were turned into theatres or ballrooms; dames and cavaliers danced the minuet or the ‘furlana’; ‘Punch,’ ‘Pantaloon,’ and ‘Pierrot’ vied with each other to make the bevies of aristocratic young ladies laugh at jests they should never have understood. Even during the rest of the year the convents were what would now be called brilliant social centres, to [Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 92._] which married women came accompanied by their officially recognised ‘cicisbei,’ while young gentlemen of leisure flirted with the [Sidenote: _Mutinelli, Ult. 61-62._] scholars. It was even common for the girls to keep up a regular correspondence with their admirers. Take the following passage which I translate from Goldoni’s autobiography, a book which may [Sidenote: _Goldoni, vol. i. chap. xix._] be trusted and is singularly free from exaggeration. The adventure happened to him in Chioggia. I had always cultivated the acquaintance of the nuns of Saint Francis, where there were some very beautiful scholars, and the Signora B. (one of the nuns) had one under her direction who was very lovely and very rich and amiable. She would have been exactly to my taste, but my youth, my condition, and my want of fortune did not allow me to entertain any illusions.