Page:The Italian - Radcliffe, volume 1 (1797).djvu/221

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CHAP. VIII.

Who may she be that steals through yonder cloister,And, as the beam of evening tints her veil,Unconsciously discloses saintly features,Inform'd with the high soul of saintly virtue?

During several days after Ellena's arrival at the monastery of San Stefano, she was not permitted to leave the room. The door was locked upon her, and not any person appeared except the nun, who brought her a scanty portion of food, and who was the same, that had first admitted her into that part of the convent appropriated to the abbess.

On the fourth day, when, probably, it was believed that her spirits were subdued by confinement, and by her experience of the suffering she had to expect from resistance, she was summoned to the parlour. The ab­bess was alone, and the air of austerity,with

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