Crossword-Solution: INDURATE 8 letters, 26 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 9

CHAPTER XX SURPRISING CHANGE IN MY FORTUNES Father Carnesecchi, of the Society of Jesus, who had charge of the penitents in the college of his Order, and to whom I was formally handed over by my indurate captor, was a member of an old family of Fiesole long settled in Florence, a thin, threadbare, humble old man, who kept his eyes fixed to the earth--sharply piercing, intelligent eyes as they could be--and did his best to keep his lips from speaking.

But this was very odd about the affair, that the stiffer Virginia grew, as I saw her there, the more indurate, the more ruggedly of the soil, declining battle, the more Aurelia shrank in my eyes, the less confident her call to me, the more frail her hold of my heart.

The Dean was a venerable man who, having served acceptably through the preceding reign, was immensely discreet, and thoroughly indurate with formalism and ceremony; wherefore, passing his speech and manner, it is better worth the while to give, briefly as may be, the substance of the communication he brought to the Princess.

When we return to him, what changes will the feelings now awakened within him, have worked in his character! The drops that trickle within the cavern harden, yet brighten into spars as they indurate.

This reflected opinion of others wrought also to the mollifying of his mother’s feelings toward him; but those with which she regarded Annie they only served to indurate, as the more revealing the girl’s unworthiness of him.