Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/46

Rh washing the hands and face, with a green curtain sliding on a rod before it. This passage leads to the old nuns' sleeping-room on the right, and the Superior's sleeping-room beyond it, as well as to a stair-case which conduct to the nuns' sleeping-room above. At the end of the passage is a door opening into —

3. The dining-room; this is larger than the community-room, and has three long tables for eating, and a collection of little pictures, a crucifix, and an image of the infant Saviour in a glass case. This apartment has four doors, by the first of which we are supposed to have entered, while one opens to a pantry, and the third and fourth to the two next apartments.

4. A large community-room, with tables for sewing, and a stair-case on the opposite left-hand corner.

5. A community-room for prayer, used by both nuns and novices. In the farther right-hand corner is a small room, partitioned off, called the room for the examination of conscience, which I had visited while a novice by permission of the Superior, and where nuns and novices occasionally resorted to reflect on their character, usually in preparation for the sacrament, or when they had transgressed some of the rules. This little room was hardly large enough to contain half a dozen persons at a time.

6. Next, beyond, is a large community-room for Sundays. A door leads to the yard, and thence to a gate in the wall on the cross street.

7. Adjoining this is a sitting-room, fronting on the cross street, with two windows, and a store room on the side opposite them. There is but little furniture, and that very plain.

8. From this room a door leads into what I call the wax-room, as it contains many figures in wax, not intended for sale. There we sometimes used to pray, or meditate on the Saviour's passion. This room projects from the main building; leaving it, you enter a long passage, with clipboards on the right, in which are stored crockeryware, knives and forks, and other articles of