Here, the reader may think, it would have been proper for me to have told her that she was a worthless girl, who might go to the deuce for all I cared; but if such is his opinion, it is not, and was not, mine. I shall not set down all the talk between us; it was beating the air on my side, and a steady trampling of solid earth on hers. My final argument, and that only, produced a certain effect upon this remarkably clear- headed girl. I told her that part of my story which dealt with Aurelia's perfections and my own disastrous imperfections; I made her understand that I was not the inexperienced man she had thought me; rather, I was one with two examples ever before him--one shining with the pure effulgence of Heaven, the other harsh, staring, horrible, like some baleful fire at sea. "Ah, Virginia," I concluded, "you must not misjudge me. It is a sinner who speaks to you, not a saint removed too far to help you. A sinner indeed am I, yet not utterly lost. I have a guide, a hope, a haven; I have a light whereby I may steer my poor barque. Aurelia Lanfranchi--no! let me call her by her own name--Aurelia Gualandi will save my soul alive. Oh, let her example be yours--and her excellence your means of excellence!" Virginia, I say, was struck by these moving words of mine. She hung her head and seemed sunk in thought. "I know nothing of this lady, nor of her nation," she said, more gently than before, "but what you say of her pleases me very much. Evidently you love her, and she you. But you must allow me to tell you now, what I was timid to say before, that she showed much good sense in putting you in the cupboard, and you remarkably little in jumping out of it. Half an hour more cupboard and your learned doctor had been asleep. Next day you could have made your plans with your lady. She would have rewarded you: but so she would if, when she invited you to accompany her, you had offered her your arm and put on your hat. What possessed you, then--what inscrutable reasons had you? But there would be no end to my questions and no satisfaction in your replies. Why, Heaven! the world was before you two! You had happiness, adventure, all the rest of it. And if you must needs wander this world, need I assure you that two are better company than one?" Fra Palamone, I remembered, had been of that opinion too. "As it is," she continued, "you may be years before you find Aurelia, and you must be prepared for any step she may have been driven to take in her extremity. I don't wish to wound you--but there can hardly be any doubt about her plans." She rose to her feet and looked kindly at me, saying, "I thank you for telling me your story. If I understand it, I think you are rather mad; if I don't, then I must be. But I admire you; I think I love you. I foretell happiness for you in times to come, but not of the sort you seem to hope for at present." She held out her hand to me. "Adieu, Don Francesco," she said, "we will part here.