ll. It was entered by the last door in
the corridor within, and was near the abbess's apartment, which was
entered from the corridor, through a small antechamber which also gave
access to the vast linen-presses. The balcony, too, had a little
staircase leading down into the garden. It had always been the custom to
carry the linen to and from the laundry through Maria Addolorata's cell,
and through a postern gate in the garden wall, the washing being done in
the town. By this plan, the annoyance was avoided of carrying the huge
baskets through the whole length of the convent, to and from the main
entrance, which was also much further removed from the house of Sora
Nanna, the chief laundress. Moreover, Maria Addolorata had charge of all
the convent linen, and the employment thus afforded her was an undoubted
privilege in itself, for occupation of any kind not devotional was
excessively scarce in such an existence.

In the eyes of the other nuns, the constant society of the abbess
herself was also a privilege, and one not by any means to be despised.
After all, the abbess and her niece were nearly related, they could talk
of the affairs of their family, and the abbess doubtless received many
letters from Rome containing all the interesting news of the day, and
all the social gossip--perfectly innocent, of course--which was the
chronicle of Roman life. These were valuable compensations, and the nuns
envied them. The abbess, too, saw her brother, the archbishop and
titular cardinal of Subiaco, when the princely prelate came out from
Rome for the coolness of the mountains in August and September, and his
conversation was said to be not only edifying, but fascinating. The
cardinal was a very good man, like many of the Braccio family, but he
was also a man of the world, who had been sent upon foreign missions of
importance, and had acquired some worldly fame as well as much
ecclesiastical dignity in the course of his long life. It must be
delightful, the nuns thought, to be his own sister, to receive long
visits from him, and to hear all he had to say about the busy world of
Rome. To most of them, everything beyond Rome was outer darkness.

But though the nuns envied the abbess and Maria Addolorata, they did not
venture to say so, and they hardly dared to think so, even when they
were all alone, each in her cell; for the concentration of conventual
life magnifies small spiritual sins in the absence of anything really
sinful, a