Pagina 304 di 1118

She hated the nuns, because she remembered their artifices, and

regarded them in some measure as the authors of her misfortune;

she tyrannised over them with impunity, because they dared not

rebel against her authority, and incur the resentment of the

powerful lord, her father. Those nuns who were really pious and

harmless, she hated for their piety itself, as it seemed to cast

a tacit reproach on her weakness; and she suffered no occasion to

escape without railing at them as bigots and hypocrites. It

might, however, have mitigated her asperity towards them, had she

known that the black balls to oppose her entrance had been cast

into the urn by their sympathetic generosity. She found, however,

one consolation, in the unlimited power she possessed, in being

courted and flattered, and in hearing herself called the

"signora." But what a consolation! Her soul felt its

insufficiency, but had not the courage nor the virtue to seek

happiness from the only source where it could be found.