d joy of a friendship whose parties, b: freely unbosoming
themselves to each other, assuage every pang and double every
delight.

Among the crowds of nuns, young ladies of noble families and refined
education, early set apart to this mode of existence, with all their
glowing sentiments and dreams undispelled by the cold touch of the
world, the inviting and innocent vent of sisterly love must often
have been welcomed as a heavenly boon, and improved with enthusiasm.
Also a deep affection, mixed of many choice ingredients of authority,
dependence, admiration, sympathy, and tenderness, must frequently
have sprung up, and been nourished to an intense development, between
Lady Superiors and their pupils, Abbesses and nuns. The relation of
Mother Agnes Arnauld and Jacqueline Pascal exhibits an instance. The
correspondence and memoirs of Madame de Chantal afford many striking
examples. In the Order of the Visitation, founded by her, and whose
outlines were drawn by St. Francis of Sales, the element of Christian
friendship plays a large part. The Lady Superior has an aide, a
sister chosen by herself, to admonish and warn her of her faults, and
to receive all complaints from those who might feel that she had
wronged or aggrieved them. The duty of the directress of the novices
is to exercise them in obedience, sweetness, and modesty; to clear
from their minds all those follies, whims, sickly tendernesses, by
which their characters might be enfeebled; to instruct them in the
practice of virtue, the best methods of prayer and meditation; and to
give them a wise and patient sympathy and guidance in every exigency.

Madame de Longueville and Angeliaue Arnauld formed an impassioned
friendship, worthy of mention as one of the richest on record--after
the conversion of the former, and her retirement from the world.
Unquestionably, if, at the waving of a wand, all the secrets of
conventual life, of the female religious orders, could be revealed, a
host of friendships would swarm to light, many of them as pure as
those which link the white-robed angels. Yet, in affirming this, one
need not be supposed ignorant of the meagre and repulsive phase of
the life sometimes led in the convent, its mechanical ritual, its
cold rules, and its irritating espionage.

The unions of heart formed between queens, princesses, or other great
ladies, and their favorite maids of honor or their chosen companions,
when these happen to be especially congenial,