Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/81

77 night through the winter. The poor nuns who owned the garments were afraid to complain of their loss, lest they should have come penance laid on them, and nothing was ever said about them. When the weather began to grow warm in the spring, Jane returned the night gowns to the beds of the nuns from whom she had borrowed them, and they were probably as much surprised to find them again, as they had been before at losing them.

Jane once found an opportunity to fill her apron with a quantity of fine apples called fameuses, which came in her way, and hastening up to the sleeping room, hid them under my bed. Then coming down, she informed me, and we agreed to apply for leave to make our elevens, as it is called. The meaning of this is, to repeat a certain round of prayers, for nine days in succession, to some saint we choose to address for assistance in becoming more charitable, affectionate, or something else. We easily obtained permission, and hastened upstairs to begin our nine days' feast on the apples; when, much to our surprise, they had all been taken away, and there was no way to avoid the disagreeable fate we had brought upon ourselves. Jane, therefore, began to search the beds of the other nuns: but not finding any trace of the apples, she became doubly vexed, and stuck pins in those that belonged to her enemies.

When bedtime came, they were much scratched in getting into bed, which made them break silence, and that subjected them to penances.