be driven from my soul, for had it not been for the devil, I would have leaped for joy, and not fainted when father mentioned the black veil.  “No,” said the holy mother, “had it not been for the devil you would rejoice to take the holy black veil blessed by the Holy Madonna and the blessed saints Clara and Theresa.  It is a holy privilege that very few can enjoy on earth.  Yea, my daughter, there can not be a greater sin in the sight of the Madonna and the blessed saints, than to reject a secluded life.  Yea,” said the crafty old nun, (who was thinking much more about my gold, than my soul,) “I never knew a young lady who had the offer of becoming a nun and rejected it, who ever came to a good end.  If they refuse, and marry, they generally die in child-bed with the first child, or they will marry cruel husbands, who beat them and kill them by inches.  Therefore, dear daughter, let me most affectionately warn you as you have had the honor of being selected by the holy Bishop and our holy confessor to the high dignity and privilege of a professed nun, of the order of St. Ursula, reject it not at your peril.  Be assured, heaven knows how to punish such rebellion.”

My head ached so violently at the time, and I was so feverish that I begged the old woman to send for my mother, and to talk to me no more on the subject of the black veil, but to drop it until some future time.  In my agony on account of the foul plot against my liberty, my virtue, and my gold, I felt such a passion of rage come upon me, that had I absolute power for the moment I would have cast every Abbess, Pope, Bishop and Priest into the bottomless pit.  May the Lord forgive me, but I would have done it at that time with a good will.  The greatest comfort I now had was reading my Tuscan friend’s New Testament, or hearing it read by her when we had a chance to be by ourselves, which was not very often.  In the evening of the same day of my illness, father and mother came to see me, and Satan came also in the shape of the confessor; so that I had not a moment alone with my dear parents.  The confessor feared my determined opposition to a convent’s life, for he had previous to this, several times in the confessional, dropped hints to me on the great happiness, purity, serenity and joy of all holy nuns.  But I always told him I would not be a nun for the world.  I should be so good, it would kill me in a short time.  “No, no, father,” said I, “I will not be A nun.”

Father spoke to me again of his great misfortune—­told me that his trial would come on in a few days and that he was now at liberty on a very heavy bail; that the Bishop was only waiting my answer to start immediately for the holy city, and throw himself at the feet of the holy Pope to procure father’s unconditional pardon from the King.  I said “my dear father, how long will you be imprisoned if you do not get a pardon?” “From two to five years,” he replied.  “My daughter, it is my first offence, and I have witnesses to prove that the priest who appeared against me, urged me to drink wine several times after I had drank a large quantity, and was the direct cause of my saying what I did.”  Now it all came to me, that the whole of it was a plot, a Jesuitical trick, to get my father in the clutches of the law, and then make a slave of me for life through my sympathy for my dear father.