After breakfast, the abbess came to pay her a visit. There is very little amument in the cloister, and the good superior was eager to make the acquaintanbsp;of her new boarder.
Milady wished to plea the abbess. This was a very easy matter for a woman so really superior as she was. She tried to be agreeable, and she was charming, winning the good superior by her varied versation and by the grabsp;of her whole personality.
The abbess, who was the daughter of a noble hou, took particular delight in stories of the court, whibsp;so ldom travel to the extremities of the kingdom, and whibsp;above all, have so mubsp;difficulty in peing the walls of vents, at who threshold the noi of the world dies away.
Milady, on the trary, was quite versant with all aristocratibsp;intrigues, amid whibsp;she had stantly lived for five or six years. She made it her business, therefore, to amu the good abbess with the worldly practibsp;of the court of Franbsp;mixed with the etribsp;pursuits of the king; she made for her the sdalous ibsp;of the lords and ladies of the court, whom the abbess knew perfectly by name, touched lightly on the amours of the queen and the Duke of Bugham, talking a great deal to indubsp;her auditor to talk a little.
But the abbess tented herlf with listening and smiling without replying a word. Milady, however, saw that this sort of narrative amud her very mubsp;and kept at it; only she now let her versation drift toward the cardinal.
But she was greatly embarrasd. She did not know whether the abbess was a royalist or a cardinalist; she therefore fined herlf to a prudent middle cour. But the abbess, on her part, maintained a rerve still more prudent, tenting herlf with making a profound ination of the head every time the fair traveler pronounbsp;the name of his Eminence.
Milady began to think she should soon grow weary of a vent life; she resolved, then, to risk something in order that she might know how to absp;afterward. Desirous of eing how far the discretion of the good abbess would go, she began to tell a story, obscure at first, but very circumstantial afterward, about the cardinal, relating the amours of the minister with Mme. d''Aiguillon, Marion de Lorme, and veral ay women.