God's past and present dealings with her soul, and explained to him
the meaning of what had just taken place. Don Antonio listened with
astonishment and gratitude, and thus addressed her: "You have just
escaped from a great danger, my daughter; for those who aim at
perfection cannot conceal any thing from their spiritual guide without
running the risk of delusion. By your mistaken silence you were
complying with the suggestions of Satan, who, under the semblance of
humility, was seeking to awaken in you a secret and baneful pride. You
would have been led by degrees to over-estimate these supernatural
favours, to deem them not merely means of grace, but rewards due to your
merits; to despise those to whom God does not grant them; and to give
yourself up to extravagant and unauthorised austerities in order to
secure their continuance, and to distinguish yourself in your own and
others' sight. I should have forbidden you to practise them; you would
have been tempted to renounce my guidance, to take one confessor after
another, until you had found one weak or blind enough to approve your
self-will; and then the arch-enemy of mankind, under the garb of an
angel of light, would have made you the prey of his delusions, till
at last you might have fallen from one error into another, and made
shipwreck of your faith. Such has been the downward course of many a
soul, that has begun by yielding to a false humility--the offspring of
pride--and has ended in sin and perdition."

From that time forward, Francesca was on her guard against every species
of pride and self-reliance, however disguised and refined. She related
her faults and temptations, the graces she received and the favours she
obtained, with the same childlike openness and simplicity. It was at the
age of sixteen that she was thus advanced in the science of the saints;
and every day her virtues and her piety increased.