I do not remember leaving the cell.  The first thing I realized they were placing me in a chair in the kitchen, and allowed me to lean my head upon the table.  They gave me some gruel, and I soon revived so that I could sit up in my chair and speak in a whisper.  But it was some hours before I could stand on my feet or speak loud.  An Abbess was in the kitchen preparing bread and wine for the priests (they partake of these refreshments every day at ten in the morning and three in the afternoon).  She brought a pailful of wine and placed it on the table near me, and left a glass standing beside it.  When she turned away, I took the glass, dipped up a little of the wine, and drank it.  She saw me do it, but said not a word, and I think she left it there for that purpose.  The wine was very strong, and my stomach so weak, I soon began to feel sick, and asked permission to go to bed.  They took me up in their arms and carried me to my old room and laid me on the bed.  Here they left me, but the Abbess soon returned with some gruel made very palatable with milk and sugar.  I was weak, and my hand trembled so that I could not feed myself; but the Abbess kindly sat beside me and fed me until I was satisfied.  I had nothing more to eat until the next day at eleven o’clock, when the Abbess again brought me some bread and gruel, and a cup of strong tea.  She requested me to drink the tea as quick as possible, and then she concealed the mug in which she brought it

I was now able to feed myself, and you may be sure I had an excellent appetite, and was not half so particular about my food as some persons I have since known.  I lay in bed till near night, when I rose, dressed myself without assistance, and went down to the kitchen.  I was so weak and trembled so that I could hardly manage to get down stairs; but I succeeded at last, for a strong will is a wonderful incentive to efficient action.

In the kitchen I met the Lady Superior.  She saw how weak I was, and as she assisted me to a chair, she said, “I should not have supposed that you could get down here alone.  Have you had anything to eat to-day?” I was about to say yes, but one of the nuns shook her head at me, and I replied “No.”  She then brought some bread and wine, requesting me to eat it quick, for fear some of the priests might come in and detect us.  Thus I saw that she feared the priests as well as the rest of us.  Truly, it was a terrible crime she bad committed!  No wonder she was afraid of being caught!  Giving a poor starved nun a piece of bread, and then obliged to conceal it as she would have done a larceny or a murder!  Think of it, reader, and conceive, if you can, the state of that community where humanity is a crime—­where mercy is considered a weakness of which one should be ashamed!  If a pirate or a highwayman had been guilty of treating a captive as cruelly as I was treated by those priests, he would have been looked upon as an inhuman monster, and at once given up to the strong