Don Gaston readily chimed in with his lady’s wishes: but knowing the sentiments of the duke, his brother, respecting a monastic life, it was determined that your sister’s destination should be carefully concealed from him. The better to guard the secret, it was resolved that Agnes should accompany her aunt, Donna Rodolpha into Germany, whither that lady was on the point of following her new-married husband, Baron Lindenberg. On her arrival at that estate, the young Agnes was put into a convent, situated but a few miles from the castle. The nuns to whom her education was confided performed their charge with exactitude: they made her a perfect mistress of many talents, and strove to infuse into her mind a taste for the retirement and tranquil pleasures of a convent. But a secret instinct made the young recluse sensible that she was not born for solitude: in all the freedom of youth and gaiety, she scrupled not to treat as ridiculous many ceremonies which the nuns regarded with awe; and she was never more happy than when her lively imagination inspired her with some scheme to plague the stiff lady abbess, or the ugly ill-tempered old porteress. She looked with disgust upon the prospect before her: however no alternative was offered to her, and she submitted to the decree of her parents, though not without secret repining.