These apprehensions had no sooner gained ground in her imagination, than she became the most disconsolate creature in the world.  The abbess took advantage of her melancholy, as knowing the occasion of it, and began to represent, in the strongest terms, the instability of all human expectations:—­you may easily see, my dear child, said she, that monsieur either no longer lives, or ceases to live for you:—­young men are wavering, every new object attracts their wishes;—­they are impatient for a time, but soon grow cool;—­absence renders them forgetful of their vows and promises;—­there is no real dependance on them;—­fly therefore to that divine love which never can deceive you;—­give yourself up to heaven, and you will soon be enabled to despise the fickle hopes of earth.

Instead of saying any thing to comfort her, in this manner was she continually persecuted; and tho’ it is impossible for any one to have less inclination to a monastic life than she had, yet the depression of her spirits, the firm belief she now should never see du Plessis more, the misfortune of her circumstances, joined to the artifices they made use of, and the repeated offers of accepting her without the usual sum paid on such occasions, might possibly at last have prevailed on her.—­She was half convinced in her mind that it was the only asylum left to shield her from the wants and insults of the world; and the more she reflected on the changes, the perplexities, and vexation, of different kinds, the few years she yet had lived had presented her with, the more reason she found to acquiesce with the persuasions of the abbess.  But heaven would not suffer the deceit practised on her to be crowned with success, and discovered it to her timely enough to prevent her from giving too much way to that despair, which alone could have prevailed with her to yield to their importunities.

There was among the sisterhood a young lady called donna Leonora, who being one of many daughters of a family, more eminent for birth than riches, was compelled, as too many are, to become a nun, in order to prevent her marrying beneath her father’s dignity.  She had taken a great liking to Louisa from the moment she came into the convent, and a farther acquaintance ripened it into a sincere friendship.  Tho’ secluded from the world, the austere air of a monastery had no effect upon her, she still retained her former vivacity; and it was only in the conversations these two had toge whenever they could separate from the others, that Louisa found any cordial to revive her now almost sinking spirits.

One day as she was ruminating on her melancholy affairs, this young nun came hastily into her chamber, and with a countenance that, before she spoke, denoted she had something very extraordinary to acquaint her with,—­dear sister, cried she, I bring you the most surprising news, but such as will be my ruin if you take the least notice of receiving it from me; and perhaps your own, if you seem to be acquainted with it at all.