Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/22

Rh no name. The titles used in speaking of her were, the holy saint, reverend mother, or saint bon pasteur, (the holy good shepherd.)

It is wonderful that we could have carried our reverence for the Superior so far as we did, although it was the direct tendency of many instructions and regulations, indeed of the whole system, to permit, even to foster, a superstitious regard for her. One of us was occasionally called into her room to cut her nails, or dress her hair; and we would often collect the clippings, and distribute them to each other, or preserve them with the utmost care. I once picked up all the stray hairs I could find after combing her head, bound them together, and kept them until she told me I was not worthy to possess things so sacred. Jane M'Coy and I were once sent to alter a dress for the Superior. I gathered up all the bits of thread, made a little bag, and put them into it for safe preservation. This I wore a long time around my neck, so long, that I wore out a number of strings, which I had replaced with new ones. I believed it to possess the power of removing pain, and often prayed to it to cure the toothache, &c. Jane Ray sometimes porfessed to outgo us all in devotion to the Superior, and would pick up the feathers after making her bed. These she would distribute among us, saying, "when she dies, relics will begin to grow scarce, and you had better supply yourselves in season." Then she would treat the whole matter in some way to turn it into ridicule. Equally contradictory would she appear, when occasionally she would obtain leave from her Superior to tell her dream. With a serious face, which sometimes imposed upon all of us, and made us half believe she was in a perfect state of sanctity, she would narrate in French some unaccountable vision which she said she had enjoyed; then turning round, would say "There are some who do not understand me; you all ought to be informed." And then she would say something totally different in English, which put us