She was a neighbour, and came every evening to keep the chemist's elderly wife company, and at a regular hour a servant called to take her home.

I had never made love to her but once in a trifling sort of way, and in the presence of the old lady, but I was surprised not to see her after that for several days, and I expressed my astonishment.

The good lady told me that very likely the girl's cousin, an abbe, with whom she was residing, had heard of my seeing her every evening, had become jealous, and would not allow her to come again.
"An abbe jealous ?" "Why not?
He never allows her to go out except on Sundays to attend the first mass at the Church of Santa Maria Mater Domini, close by his dwelling.

He did not object to her coming here, because he knew that we never had any visitors, and very likely he has heard through the servant of your being here every evening." A great enemy to all jealous persons, and a greater friend to my amorous fancies, I wrote to the young girl that, if she would leave her cousin for me, I would give her a house in which she should be the mistress, and that I would surround her with good society and with every luxury to be found in Venice.

I added that I would be in the church on the following Sunday to receive her answer.
I did not forget my appointment, and her answer was that the abbe being her tyrant, she would consider herself happy to escape out of his clutches, but that she could not make up her mind to follow me unless I consented to marry her.