Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/90

Rh the circumstances in the chapel came to mind, we would laugh out. We had got into such a atute, that we could not easily restrain ourselves. The Superior, yielding to necessity, allowed us recreation for the whole day.

The Superior used sometimes to send Jane to instruct the novices in their English prayers. She would proceed to the task with all seriousness; but sometimes chose the most ridiculous, as well as irreverent passages from the songs, and other things, which she had sometimes learned, which would set us, who understood her, laughing. One of her rhymes, I recollect, began with — "The Lord of love — look from above, Upon this turkey hen!" Jane for a time slept opposite me, and often in the night would rise, unobserved, and slip into my bed, to talk with me, which she did in a low whisper, and return again with equal caution.

She would tell me of the tricks she had played, and such as she meditated, and sometimes make me laugh so loud, that I had much to do in the morning with begging pardons and doing penances.

One winter's day she was sent to light a fire; but after she had done so, remarked privately to some of us, "my fingers were so cold — you'll see if I do it again."

The next day there was a great stir in the house, because it was said that mad Jane Ray had been seized with a fit while making a fire, and she was taken up apparently insensible, and conveyed to her bed. She complained to me, who visited her in the course of the day, that she was likely to starve, as food was denied her; and I was persuaded to pin a stocking under my dress, and secretly put food into it from the table. This I afterwards carried to her, and relieved her wants.

One of the things which I had blamed Jane most for