She was proceeding in giving vent to the anguish of her soul in exclamations such as these; but Leonora begged she would moderate her grief, and for her sake, as much as possible, conceal the reasons she had for resentment.  Louisa again promised she would do her utmost to keep them from thinking she even suspected they had played her false;—­then cried, But tell me, my dear Leonora, were they not a little moved at the tender melancholy which, I perceive, ran thro’ this epistle?  Alas! my dear, replied the other, they have long since forgot those soft emotions which make us simpathize in the woes of love:—­inflexible by the rigid rules of this place, and more by their own age, they rather looked with horror than pity on a tender inclination:—­they had a long conversation together, the result of which was to spare nothing that might either persuade, or if that failed, compel you to take the order.

It is not in their power to do the latter, interrupted Louisa; and this discovery of their baseness, more than ever, confirms me in the resolution never to consent.

You know not what is in their power, said Leonora; they may make pretences for confining you here, which, as they are under no jurisdiction but the church, the church will allow justifiable:—­indeed, Louisa, continued she, I should be loth to see you have recourse to force to get out of their hands which would only occasion you ill treatment:—­to whom, alas, can you complain!—­you are a stranger in this country, without any one friend to espouse your cause:—­were even Du Plessis here in person, I know not, as they have taken it into their heads to keep you here, if all he could urge, either to the pope or confessory, would have any weight to oblige them to relinquish you.  A convent is the securest prison in the world; and whenever any one comes into it, who by any particular endowment promises to be an ornament to the order, cannot, without great difficulty, disentangle themselves from the snares laid for them.—­It is for this reason I have feared for you ever since your entrance; for tho’ I should rejoice in so agreeable a companion, I know too well the miseries of an enforced attachment to wish you to be partaker of it.

Louisa found too much reason in what she said, to doubt the misery of her condition;—­she knew the great power of the church in all these countries where the roman-catholic religion is established, more especially in those places under the papal jurisdiction, and saw no way to avoid what was now more terrible to her than ever.  Those reflections threw her into such agonies, that Leonora had much ado to keep her from falling into fits:—­she conjured her again and again, never to betray what she had entrusted her with; assuring her, that if it were so much as guessed at, she should be exposed to the worst treatment, and punished as an enemy to the order of which she was a member.  Louisa as often assured her that nothing should either tempt or provoke her to abuse that generous friendship she had testified for her; but as she was not able to command her countenance, tho’ she could her words, she resolved to pretend herself indisposed and keep her bed, that she might be the less observed, or the change in her should seem rather the effects of ill health than any secret discontent.