Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/18

Rh at the house of a French family in St. Lawrence suburbs. Here I remained a fortnight; during which time I formed acquaintance with the family, particularly with the mistress of the house, who was a devoted Papist, and had a high respect for the Superior.

On Saturday morning I called, and was admitted into the Black Nunnery as a novice, much to my satisfaction, for I had a high idea of life in a convent, secluded as I supposed the inmates to be, from the world and all its evil influences, and assured of everlasting happiness in heaven. The Superior received me and conducted me into a large room, where the novices, who are called in French, Postulantes, were assembled, and engaged in the occupation of sewing.

Here were about forty of them, and they were in groups in different parts of the room, near the windows: but in each group was one of the veiled nuns of the convent, whose abode was in the interior apartments, to which no novice was admitted. As we entered, the Superior informed them that a new novice had come, and desired any present who might have known me in the world to signify it.

Two Miss Feugnees, and a Miss Howard from Vermont, who had been my fellow-pupils in the Congregational Nunnery, immediately recognized me. I was then placed in one of the groups at a distance from them, and furnished by a nun, called Sainte Clotilde, with materials to make a purse, such as priests used to carry the consecrated wafer in, when they administer the sacrament to the sick. I well remember my feelings at that time, sitting among a number of strangers, and expecting with painful anxiety the arrival of the dinner-hour. Then, as I knew, ceremonies were to be performed, for which I was but ill prepared, as I had not yet heard the rules by which I was to be governed, and knew nothing of the forms to be repeated in the daily exercises, except the creed in Latin. This was during the time of recreation, as it is called. The only recreation there allowed, is that of the mind, and of this but