The repetition may have been one reason why Mary discarded the framework.
[99] Mathilda did have such a friend, but, as she admits, she profited little from his teachings.
[100] In _F of F--B_ there is another, longer version (three and a half pages) of this incident, scored out, recounting the author's return to the Elysian gardens, Diotima's consolation of Mathilda, and her request for Mathilda's story.

After wandering through the alleys and woods adjacent to the gardens, the author came upon Diotima seated beside Mathilda.

"It is true indeed she said our affections outlive our earthly forms and I can well sympathize in your disappointment that you do not find what you loved in the life now ended to welcome you here[.] But one day you will all meet how soon entirely depends upon yourself--It is by the acquirement of wisdom and the loss of the selfishness that is now attached to the sole feeling that possesses you that you will at last mingle in that universal world of which we all now make a divided part." Diotima urges Mathilda to tell her story, and she, hoping that by doing so she will break the bonds that weigh heavily upon her, proceeds to "tell this history of strange woe.".