vows she so bitterly regretted.

Though custom and respect kept her silent, Angelique's frank and
straightforward nature must have felt bitterly ashamed as well as angry
at the way her father had tried to trick her, and she seems on the whole
to have been rather glad to return to her abbey. The nuns were delighted
to have her back again, and as she remained very delicate all through
the winter, she was a great deal indoors, too tired to do anything but
rest, and read now and then a little book of meditations, which one of
the sisters had given her.

* * * * *

Just at this time an event happened which turned the whole course of
Angelique's life.

A Capuchin monk, father Basil by name, stopped at Port Royal one
evening, and asked the abbess's leave to preach. At first she refused,
saying it was too late; then she changed her mind, for she was fond of
hearing sermons, which, even if they were bad, generally gave her
something to think of. There does not seem to have been anything very
striking about this one, but when it was ended 'I found myself,' says
Angelique, 'happier to know myself a nun than before I had felt wretched
at being one, and that there was nothing in the whole world that I would
not do for God.'

Now Angelique's inward struggles took a different turn; she no longer
desired to be free of her vows, but rather to carry them out to the
utmost of her power, and to persuade her nuns to do so likewise. For
some time she met with little encouragement. Another friar of the order
of the Capuchins, to whom she opened her heart when he came to preach on
Whit Sunday, was a man of no sense or tact, and urged such severe and
instant reforms that the poor nuns were quite frightened. Then the
prioress, whom Angelique also consulted, told her that she was not well,
and excited, and that in three months' time she would think quite
differently; all of which would have been true of a great many people,
but was a mistake as regarded Angelique. Thus disappointed in both her
counsellors, the abbess longed to resign her post, and to become a
simple nun in some distant convent; but she dared not disobey her newly
awakened conscience, which told her to stay where she was and do her
work.

* * * * *

It is to be noted that, unlike most reformers, Angelique took care that
her reforms began at the right end--namely, with herself. Again and
again we see that when