hat peculiar placid plumpness which has been
observed by the profane in devout persons, especially in the Roman
Church and in certain dissenting sects (Anglicanism does not seem to be
so favourable to it), and in "persons of religion" (in the technical
sense) most of all.

This Prioress was a short little person, round and white,
with a double chin, and a complexion at once fresh and
placid. You never see faces like that in worldly persons: it
is a kind of _embonpoint_ quite different from others--one
which has been formed more quietly and more
methodically--that is to say, something into which there
enters more art, more fashioning, nay, more self-love, than
into that of such as we.[337]

As a rule, it is either temperament, or feeding, or laziness
and luxury, which give _us_ such of it as we have. But in
order to acquire the kind of which I am speaking, it is
necessary to have given oneself up with a saintlike
earnestness to the task. It can only be the result of
delicate, loving, and devout attention to the comfort and
well-being of the body. It shows not only that life--and a
healthy life--is an object of desire, but that it is wanted
soft, undisturbed, and dainty; and that, while enjoying the
pleasures of good health, the person enjoying it bestows on
herself all the pettings and the privileges of a perpetual
convalescence.

Also this religious plumpness is different in outward form
from ours, which is profane of aspect; it does not so much
make a face fat, as it makes it grave and decent; and so it
gives the countenance an air, not so much joyous, as
tranquil and contented.

Further, when you look at these good ladies, you find in
them an affable exterior; but perhaps, for all that, an
interior indifference. Their faces, and not their souls,
give you sympathy and tenderness; they are comely images,
which seem to possess sensibility, and which yet have merely
a surface of kindness and sentiment.[338]

Acute as this is, it may be said to be somewhat displaced--though it
must be remembered that it is the Marianne of fifty, "Mme. la Comtesse
de * * *," who is supposed to be writing, not the Marianne of fifteen.
No such objection can be taken to what follows.

[_She is, after the breach with Climal, and after Valville has earlier
discovered his wicked uncle