of the writer to meet me either in gondola, or at the island of San Lazaro, or at a third rendezvous, indicated in the note.  ’I know the country’s disposition well’—­in Venice ’they do let Heaven see those tricks they dare not show,’ &c. &c.; so, for all response, I said that neither of the three places suited me; but that I would either be at home at ten at night alone, or be at the ridotto at midnight, where the writer might meet me masked.  At ten o’clock I was at home and alone (Marianna was gone with her husband to a conversazione), when the door of my apartment opened, and in walked a well-looking and (for an Italian) bionda girl of about nineteen, who informed me that she was married to the brother of my amorosa, and wished to have some conversation with me.  I made a decent reply, and we had some talk in Italian and Romaic (her mother being a Greek of Corfu), when lo! in a very few minutes in marches, to my very great astonishment, Marianna S * *, in propria persona, and after making a most polite courtesy to her sister-in-law and to me, without a single word seizes her said sister-in-law by the hair, and bestows upon her some sixteen slaps, which would have made your ear ache only to hear their echo.  I need not describe the screaming which ensued.  The luckless visiter took flight.  I seized Marianna, who, after several vain efforts to get away in pursuit of the enemy, fairly went into fits in my arms; and, in spite of reasoning, eau de Cologne, vinegar, half a pint of water, and God knows what other waters beside, continued so till past midnight.

“After damning my servants for letting people in without apprizing me, I found that Marianna in the morning had seen her sister-in-law’s gondolier on the stairs, and, suspecting that his apparition boded her no good, had either returned of her own accord, or been followed by her maids or some other spy of her people to the conversazione, from whence she returned to perpetrate this piece of pugilism.  I had seen fits before, and also some small scenery of the same genus in and out of our island:  but this was not all.  After about an hour, in comes—­who? why, Signor S * *, her lord and husband, and finds me with his wife fainting upon a sofa, and all the apparatus of confusion, dishevelled hair, hats, handkerchiefs, salts, smelling bottles—­and the lady as pale as ashes, without sense or motion.  His first question was, ’What is all this?’ The lady could not reply—­so I did.  I told him the explanation was the easiest thing in the world; but in the mean time it would be as well to recover his wife—­at least, her senses.  This came about in due time of suspiration and respiration.

“You need not be alarmed—­jealousy is not the order of the day in Venice, and daggers are out of fashion, while duels, on love matters, are unknown—­at least, with the husbands.  But, for all this, it was an awkward affair; and though he must have known that I made love