CHAPTER XXIII

We are ruin’d and undone, my child, said the abbess to _Margarita_, ----we shall be here all night----we shall be plunder’d----we shall be ravish’d----

----We shall be ravish’d, said _Margarita_, as sure as a gun.

_Sancta Maria!_ cried the abbess (forgetting the _O!_)--why was I govern’d by this wicked stiff joint? why did I leave the convent of _Andoüillets?_ and why didst thou not suffer thy servant to go unpolluted to her tomb?

O my finger! my finger! cried the novice, catching fire at the word _servant_--why was I not content to put it here, or there, any where rather than be in this strait?

Strait! said the abbess.

Strait----said the novice; for terror had struck their understandings---- the one knew not what she said----the other what she answer’d.

O my virginity! virginity! cried the abbess.

----inity! ----inity! said the novice, sobbing.

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