Page:Saint Theresa of Avila (Gilman 1889).djvu/31

Rh choir, and, having circled about the religious, was seen to disappear in the bosom of Doña Maria Briceño, the mistress of the pensioners. This is interpreted by the Jesuit historians to mean that a brilliant light was for a time to be intrusted to Doña Maria Briceño’s care. This light, however, showed no signs of its brilliancy at first; for there never was a girl who rebelled more openly at the necessary restraints of convent life. Theresa regarded the walls as prison bars. The perpetual silence, the yoke of obedience, the monotony of the days, and even the placid, peaceful faces of the kind sisters seemed to her unendurable. At first she wept from morning to night, and besought her teachers to let her return to her own home. But nothing she could do or say moved them. Her friends from outside—doubtless the particular cousin on whose account she had been sent away—came often to visit her during the first week, and brought her presents. But this could not be allowed by the sisters, and soon ceased at their request. Years later, the saint wrote with pious contempt of those people who “sought