Therefore, loving, and being passionately loved in return, working diligently at a clean trade, living in the sweat of my brow, owing no man anything, the next few months of my life--few as they were, not more than six all told--were some of the happiest I have ever spent. They recalled those weeks at Pistoja, but only to excel them; for then I was idle and Virginia not satisfied. Then I had none of the sweet uses of domestic life--the hearth in common, and the heart too; the nuptial sacraments of kiss and embrace, the united outlook, the rational hope of increase. We forgot the world, which had forgotten us; our appetites were simple and easily satisfied; we fed each other and knew deep content. Happy, happy days at Lucca, too soon ended! We shared the uses of a single room with a couple as young and newly wedded as ourselves, rose at five in the morning, and worked at our employment until late in the evening. We ate frugally, drank a little wine and water, loved temperately, and slept profoundly. On Sundays and festivals we went to Mass together, and spent our leisure in excursions in the fields and pleasant groves with which Lucca is engirdled. We never ventured outside the territory of the Republic, but felt secure within it, trusting to our honest intentions, our simplicity and complete insignificance. Ah, blessed content! Blessed, thrice blessed obscurity! Would to God that you had been assured to us for ever! On rare occasions one or other of us had sight of the Cavaliere Aquamorta, who maintained the same magnificence at the Albergo del Sole, and was reputed to be making large sums with his faro-bank. A new scheme of his for a State lottery upon a scale never before conceived by this thrifty little State was said to be under the consideration of the Senators. Working in my master's yard, I used to see him now and again being carried in his chair to this great house or that, half a dozen link-boys before him, and his valet behind carrying his sword and gloves. Virginia often met him in the course of her errands, but, as she said, was never recognised by him. We nattered ourselves that he had forgotten our co-existence with him upon this planet. Hope never stooped to falser cozenage; we were to be rudely undeceived. CHAPTER XXXIII TREACHERY WORKS AGAINST US