"I wonder if she has much sense, after all ?" Then the woman whom he was thus inwardly criticising rose and came across the room to meet him.

Her perfect gravity, her dignity of bearing, and her gracious greeting, impressed him in spite of himself.
Pictures that one finds in history and fiction of lady abbesses rose before his mind; it was thus that he classified her.

His opinion as to the conscious romance of her life altered, for the woman before him was very real, and he knew in a moment that she had seen and suffered much.
Her eyes were full of suffering and of solicitude; but it did not seem to him that the suffering and solicitude were in any way connected with a personal need, for there was also peace upon her face.
The room did not contain much furniture.

When Caius sat down, and the lady had resumed her seat, he found, as is apt to be the way in empty rooms, that the chairs were near the wall, and that he, sitting facing her, had left nearly the room's width between them.

The sewing maidens looked at them with large eyes, and listened to everything that was said; and although they were silent, except for the sound of their stitching, it was so evident that their thoughts must form a running commentary that it gave Caius an odd feeling of acting in company with a dramatic chorus.