Lively and impulsive though she was, she was not accustomed to speak of her feelings to others, and did her best to thrust her longing for freedom into the background. But she grew pale and thin in the struggle, and at last there came a day when a visitor, guessing what was the matter, hinted that as she had taken her vows before she was old enough to do so by law, it would be easy to get absolved from them. Something of the kind may have perhaps occurred to Angelique, but, put into words, the idea filled her with horror, for deep down in her mind she felt that though her profession had been thrust upon her before she knew what she was doing, she would feel ashamed and degraded all her life if she broke her vows. Still, she wanted to forget it all if she could, and in order to distract her thoughts she began to receive and pay visits in the neighbourhood, to the great grief of her mother, who feared this was the first step towards the moonlight balls of Maubuisson. Angelique was far too tender-hearted to withstand her mother's tears, and gave up paying calls; spending the time instead in reading Plutarch's 'Lives' and other books about ancient history, and pretending to herself that she was each of the heroes in turn. But even Plutarch was a poor substitute for home life, and when her fifteenth birthday was drawing near she began to wonder if she _could_ stand it any longer. 'I considered,' she says herself, 'if it would be possible for me to return to the world, and even to get married, without telling my father or mother, for the yoke had become unsupportable.' Perhaps, she reflected, she might go to La Rochelle, where some of her Huguenot aunts were living, and though she had no wish to change her own religion, yet she was sure they would protect her. As to the difficulties of a young abbess travelling through France alone, they did not even occur to her, and she seems to have arranged her plans for escape without informing the good ladies of their expected visitor. * * * * *