trictly cloistered life! We had no special training for either one of
our labors; we had no completed constitutions or rule, and one was
liable, at any moment, to be whisked from one's quiet cell and sent
alone at night, across the kingdom, to some duty for which one was no
more fitted than a baby or a savage.

"I was set, in the beginning, to clean lamps, and black-lead the
grates, but failed in this business so completely that I was given a
district in East London to afflict with visitations and instructions.
Trying one day to convey some idea of the Real Presence to a voluble
old woman who was one of the sisterhood's most devoted _protegees_, I
said, 'Then, Sally, since you know _who_ is in the church, I hope you
never go in or out without showing proper respect.' 'Oh, yessum,
yessum!' she assured me. 'Indeed, 'm, I allays bobs to the eagle!' (the
brass eagle of the lectern!). With all Sally's bobbings to the eagle
and to us sisters, she was a dreadful old harpy, and made me think
always of two old women my father overheard talking one day at
Cirencester. There is a fund there which was long ago bequeathed by
some pious person for the furnishing small stipends to such aged poor
people as should daily devoutly hear mass. Of course since the revenues
have lapsed into Anglican hands this sum is used now for those who
attend the early service. And this was what my father heard:

"First old crone, _loquitur_: 'These be hard times, Betty. How d'ye
think of getting a livelihood this winter?'

"Second old crone: 'They _be_ hard, for shore, Anne, and I'm a-thinking
of taking to yorly priors (early prayers) for a quarter!'

"One of my droll, dreadful district visitor experiences I shall never
forget. In the process of my visitations I stumbled, one day, into the
room of a woman very haggard and very yellow, but as the woman was
dressed and moving actively about, I had no idea of her having any
special ailment, save dirt. But as soon as she knew who I was, a
visiting Sister, she began to tell me how ill she was--ill of a disease
that not another person in the whole kingdom had--the doctor said
so--spotted leprosy. And how physicians came constantly to see her, and
brought, each one, other physicians--how, in short of a horrible long,
she was a sort of gruesome doctor's pet!

"The woman's husband--for she was married, had eleven children, and
another baby coming soon--was working away at a cobbler's bench in the
room's only