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 fairest dames of Madrid confessed to the abbot their secret peccadilloes. The eyes of the luxurious friar devoured their charms. Had his penitents consulted those interpreters, he would have needed no other means of expressing his desires. For his misfortune, they were so strongly persuaded of his continence, that the possibility of his harbouring indecent thoughts never once entered their imaginations. The climate's heat, 'tis well known, operates with no small influence upon the constitutions of the Spanish ladies: but the most abandoned would have thought it an easier task to inspire with passion the marble statue of St. Francis than the cold and rigid heart of the immaculate Ambrosio.

On his part, the friar was little acquainted with the depravity of the world: he suspected not that but few of his penitents would have rejected his addresses. Yet had he been better instructed on this head, the danger attending such an attempt would have sealed up his lips in silence. He knew that it