with the success of this last
stratagem, that it greatly abated the thoughts of taking any further
revenge:--she went laughing to her confidante, and told her the whole
story, who congratulated her upon it, and said, that in her opinion,
she might take it as a peculiar providence of Heaven, that had
disappointed her first design, which could only have increased her
confusion, and probably brought a lasting scandal on the order. The
abbess wanted not reason, when her passion would permit her to exert
it, and could not help confessing the truth of what the other
remonstrated:--she now easily saw they were Natura's horses they had
made use of, but how it came to pass that those she had bespoke, or
the man she had ordered to bring them, happened to fail, remained a
point yet to be discussed:--the morning, however, cleared it up;--the
fellow acquainted her, that the farmer had no horses at home, and that
as he was coming to let her know it, he saw two men at the gate, one
of whom entered, so that he imagined she had provided herself
elsewhere:--she then bad him turn out Natura's horses, which the nun
having said how she had disposed of them, not thinking herself obliged
to take any care of what belonged to a man, who had treated her with
so much ingratitude.

Natura was all this time in the utmost perplexity, not only at the
usage he imagined had been given him by Elgidia, but also for the loss
of his horses; and at being told when he came home, that two women, in
riding habits, well mounted, but without any attendants, had been to
enquire for him:--all these things, the meaning of any one of which he
was not able to fathom, so filled his head, that he could not take any
repose:--pretty early in the morning, a letter was brought him from
Elgidia, which he hastily opened, but found nothing in it, but what
served to heighten his amazement and discontent.

She told him that she could not dispense with letting him know the
occasion of her breach of promise; that intending nothing more than to
perform it, she was hastening to the arbour, when, in the middle of
the garden, she was met by an apparition, which, as near as she could
discern, had the resemblance of herself;--that the terror she was in
had obliged her to retire; and that as she could look on what she had
seen, as no other than a warning from Heaven, she had determined to
use her utmost endeavours for extinguishing a passion obnoxious to its
will; to which end she de