no vengeance and no violence
at all.

This idea of seeing Afra gained strength under all the circumstances of
her present life. If Father Gabriel offered her comfort which was no
comfort, or reproved her when she did not feel herself wrong; if the
abbess praised her for anything she had not designed to be particularly
right; if the sisters applauded sayings which she was conscious were not
wise; if her heart ached for her grandfather's voice or countenance; if
Monsieur Critois visited her, or Pierre did not; if her lesson in
history was hard, or her piece of needle-work dull; if her flowers
faded, or her bird sang so finely that she would have been proud for the
world to hear it--the passion for seeing Afra was renewed. Afra would
explain all she could not understand, would teach her what she wanted to
know. Afra would blame her where she was aware she was wrong, instead
of bidding her be quit of it with a few prayers, while laying much
heavier stress upon something that she could cure much more easily.
Afra wrote her a few letters, which were read by the abbess before they
were delivered to her; and many more which. Pierre slipped into her
hand during their occasional interviews. She herself wrote such
prodigiously long letters to Afra, that to read them through would have
been too great an addition to the reverend mother's business. She
glanced over the first page and the last; and, seeing that they
contained criticisms on Alexander the Great, and pity for Socrates, and
questions about flower-painting and embroidery, she skipped all that lay
between.

It was not that Euphrosyne did not love and trust the abbess. She loved
her so as to open to her all but the inner chambers of her heart; and
she trusted her with all but other persons' concerns. The middle pages
of her letters contained speculation chiefly: speculation, in the first
place, on Afra's future destiny, names and events being shrouded under
mysterious expressions; and, in the second place, on points of morals,
which might be referred to Monsieur Pascal, whose opinion was of great
value. Euphrosyne had a strong persuasion, all the while, that she
should one day tell her reverend mother the whole. She knew that she
should not object to her seeing every line that Afra held of hers.
Whatever was clandestine in the correspondence was for the sake of
avoiding restraint, and not because she was ashamed of any of her
thoughts.

One morning the abbess f