them, and this
room in Villa Sannazaro! Its foreign aspect, its brightness, its comfort, the
view from the windows, had from the first worked upon her with subtle influences
of which she was unconscious. By reason of her inexperience of life, it was
impossible for Miriam to analyze her own being, and note intelligently the
modifications it underwent. Introspection meant to her nothing but debates held
with conscience - a technical conscience, made of religious precepts. Original
reflection, independent of these precepts, was to her very simply a form of sin,
a species of temptation for which she had been taught to prepare herself. With
anxiety, she found herself slipping away from that firm ground whence she was
won't to judge all within and about her; more and more difficult was it to keep
in view that sole criterion in estimating the novel impressions she received. To
review the criterion itself was still beyond her power. She suffered from the
conviction that trials foreseen were proving too strong for her. Whenever her
youth yielded to the allurement of natural joys, there followed misery of
penitence. Not that Miriam did in truth deem it a sin to enjoy the sunshine and
the breath of the sea and the beauty of mountains (though such delights might
become excessive, like any other, and so veil temptation), but she felt that for
one in her position of peril there could not be too strict a watch kept upon the
pleasures that were admitted. Hence she could never forget herself in pleasure;
her attitude must always be that of one on guard.
    The name of Italy signified perilous enticement, and she was beginning to
feel it. The people amid whom she lived were all but avowed scorners of her
belief, and yet she was beginning to like their society. Every letter she wrote
to Bartles seemed to her despatched on a longer journey than the one before; her
paramount interests were fading, fading; she could not exert herself to think of
a thousand matters which used to have the power to keep her active all day long.
The chapel-plans were hidden away; she durst not go to the place where they
would have met her eye.
    She suffered in her pride. On landing at Naples, she had imagined that her
position among the Spences and their friends would not be greatly different from
that she had held at Bartles. They were not religious people; all the more must
they respect her, feeling rebuked in her presence. The chapel project would
enhance her importance. How far otherwise had it proved! They pitied her,
compassionated her lack of knowledge, of opportunities.