by the most watchful observance of her conduct. At all times and in
all places, by day and by night, her slightest faults were noticed and
punished by this still invisible, but now evidently present monitor. At
the least imperfection in her conduct, before she had time to accuse and
to condemn herself, she felt the blow of a mysterious hand, the
warning of an ever-attentive guardian; and the sound of that mystical
chastisement was audible to others also. Great was the astonishment
of those who could thus discern something of God's dealings with this
chosen soul. Once, when she had abstained through human respect from
interrupting the course of a very frivolous and useless conversation,
the warning was inflicted with such severity that she bore the mark of
the blow for several succeeding days.

Such a rapid advance in holiness, such new and ever-increasing virtues,
were the results of this supernatural tuition, that Satan now attempted
to seduce her by the wiliest of his artifices, the master-piece of
his art, his favourite sin,--"the pride that apes humility." So many
miracles wrought in her favour, such strange revelations of God's
peculiar love for her soul, awakened in Francesca's mind, or rather the
devil suggested to her the thought, that it might be better to conceal
them from her director, or at least to acquaint him with only a portion
of the wonders that were wrought in her behalf; and accordingly, the
next time she went to confession she refrained from mentioning the
signal grace which had been vouchsafed to her. At the very instant she
was thrown prostrate on the ground, and recognised the hand of her
heavenly monitor in the blow which thus warned her of the grievous
error into which she was falling. In that short moment she had time to
perceive and acknowledge it; and with intense contrition she confessed
to her director the false humility which had beguiled her into a
dangerous reserve, with perfect openness revealed to him the whole of