As for her character, she seemed to have no vanity, no jealousy, no temper, no moodiness.

The Mother had never known such an even and well-balanced disposition as hers.

Would it have been wise to keep her back longer, because she seemed too perfect?
Would it have been just?
Would it not, indeed, have been very wrong to risk discouraging her, now that she was quite ready?
She was almost twenty-one years old and had taken no step hastily.

More than two years and a half had passed since she had entered the convent, and in all that time no one had been able to detect the smallest fault in her, either of weakness or of hastiness, still less of anything like the pride she might actually have felt in her superiority.

To keep her back now would be to accuse perfection of being imperfect; it would be as irrational as to call excellence a failing.