To confess the truth to you, said she, I stole this afternoon into the
chapel, in order to read a little book brought me the other day by one
of my friends; as it treated on a subject not allowable in a convent, I
thought that the most proper place to entertain myself with it; and was
sitting down in one of the confessionals, when hearing the little door
open from the gallery, I saw the abbess and sister Clara, who, you know,
is her favourite and confidant, come in together, and as soon as they
were entered, shut the door after them. I cannot say I had any curiosity
to hear their discourse; but fearing to be suspected by them in my
amusement, and not knowing what excuse to make for being there, if I
were seen, I slid down, and lay close at the bottom of the confessional.
They happened to place themselves very near me; and the abbess taking a
letter out of her pocket, bad Clara read it, and tell her the substance
of it as well as she could. I found it was in French, by some words
which she was obliged to repeat over and over, before, not perfectly
understanding the language, she could be able to find a proper
interpretation of. The abbess, who has a little smattering of it
herself, sometimes helped her out, and between them both I soon found it
came from monsieur du Plessis, and contained the most tender and
compassionate complaint of your unkindness in not answering his
letter;--that the symptoms he had of approaching death were not half so
severe to him as your refusing him a consolation he stood for much in
need of;--that if you found him unworthy of your love, he was certainly
so of your compassion; and concluded with the most earnest entreaty, you
would suffer him to continue no longer in a suspence more cruel than a
thousand deaths could be.

Oh heaven! cried Louisa, bursting into tears, how ungrateful must he
think me, and how can I return, as it deserves, so unexampled a