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 indisp