It was not long before this took place, however. From the first, she showed a most unusual aptitude in learning the mechanical part of her profession, and her extraordinary memory made it easy for her to remember the lectures which were given for the nurses three times a week, generally by the house surgeon, but occasionally by the great Doctor Pieri, who had been a pupil of Basini of Padua and was a professor in the University of Rome. He showed especial interest in Angela, and the pert little novice wickedly suggested that he was falling in love with her; but the truth was that he at once distinguished in her the natural gifts which were soon to make her the most valuable nurse at his disposal.
The Mother Superior expected that she would become vain and gave her some energetic lectures on the evils of conceit. There was a sort of fury of good about the pale woman that carried everything before it. She was just, but her righteous anger was a ready firebrand, and when it burst into flame, as often happened, her eloquence was extraordinary. Her face might have been carved out of white ice, but her eyes glowed like coals and her words came low, quick, and clear, and wonderfully to the point. As a girl, her temper had been terrific, and had estranged her from her own family; but her unconquerable will had forged it into a weapon that never failed her in a just cause and was never drawn in an unjust one. Monsignor Saracinesca sometimes thought that Saint Paul must have had the same kind of fiery and fearless temperament.
It sometimes outran facts, if it always obeyed her intention, as happened one day when she privately gave Angela a sermon on vanity which would have made the other novices tremble at the time and feel very uncomfortable for several days afterwards. When she had wound up her peroration and finished, she drew two or three fierce little breaths and scrutinised the young girl's face; but to her surprise it had not changed in the least. The clear young eyes were as steady and quiet as ever; if they expressed anything, it was a quiet admiration which the older woman had not hitherto roused in the younger members of her community.
'Pray for me, Mother,' Angela said, 'and I will try to be less vain.'