its love can my soul speak to thee? I know not; but thou readest my
heart,--thou seest that I love thee!'"

From this moment, Aurore gave herself up to the passion of devotion,
which, in natures like hers, is often the first to unclose. There are
all sorts of religious experiences,--some poor and shallow, some rich
and deep, with every variety of shade between. But wherever Love is
capable of being heroic, Religion will also find room to work its larger
miracles. Aurore's devotion was not likely to be a frigid recognition of
doctrine, nor to consist in the minute care of an infinitesimal soul,
whose salvation could be of small avail to any save its possessor. Her
religion could only be a sympathetic and contagious flame, running from
soul to soul, as beacon-fires catch at night and illuminate a whole
tract of country. From this time she became patient, thorough, and
laborious in all the duties of her age and place. A closer sympathy now
drew her to the nuns, with several of whom she formed happy and intimate
relations. The convent life became for the time her ideal of existence,
and she formed the plan, so common among young girls educated in this
manner, of taking the veil herself, when such a step should become
possible. This hidden purpose she carried with her, when, at the age of
sixteen, she quitted the convent with bitter regret, fearing the strange
world, fearing a conventional marriage, and looking back to the pleasant
restraints of tutelage, whose thorn hedges are always in blossom when we
view them from the dusty ways and traffic of real, responsible life.

Aurore exchanged her convent for a life of equal retirement; for her
grandmother, fearing lest the pietistic influences to which she had been
subjected should awake too dominant a chord in the passionate nature of
her pupil, brought her to Nohant at once, where, for a few days, she
realized the delight of a greater freedom from rule and surveillance. It