quy with a young priest attached to the
church. Consumed by an amorous impatience, she was not deterred from these
excursions either by bad weather or the fear of being discovered.

"She heard a great noise one night near her. In the thick darkness which
surrounded her, she imagined that she saw a viper winding itself around her
feet. She was so much overcome by fright that she died from the effects of
it a few months later."

Page 168:--"One of the confessors had a young penitent in the convent.
Every time he was called to visit a dying sister, and on that account
passed the night in the convent, this nun would climb over the partition
which separated her room from his, and betake herself to the master and
director of souls.

"Another, during the delirium of a typhoid fever, from which she was
suffering, was constantly imitating the action of sending kisses to her
confessor, who stood by the side of her bed. He, covered with blushes on
account of the presence of strangers, held a crucifix before the eyes of
the penitent, and in a commiserating tone exclaimed,--

"'Poor thing! kiss thy own spouse!'"

Page 168:--"Under the bonds of secrecy, an educanda, of fine form and
pleasing manners, and of a noble family, confided to me the fact of her
having received, from the hands of her confessor, a very interesting book
(as she described it), which related to the monastic life. I expressed the
wish to know the title, and she, before showing it to me, took the
precaution to lock the door.

"It proved to be the Monaca, by Dalembert, a book, as all know, filled with
the most disgusting obscenity."

Page 169:--"I received once from a monk, a letter in which he signified to
me that he had hardly seen me, when 'he conceived the sweet hope of
becoming my confessor.' An exquisite of the first water, a fop of scents
and euphuism, could not have employed phrases more melodramic, to demand
whether he might hope or despair."

Page 169:--"A priest who enjoyed the reputation of being an incorruptible
sacerdote, when he saw me pass through the parlatorio, used to address me
as follows:--

"'Ps, dear, come here! Ps, Ps, come here!'

"These words, addressed to me by a priest, were nauseous in the extreme.

"Finally, another priest, the most annoying of all for his obstinate
assiduity, sought to secure my affections at all cost. There was not an
image profane poetry could afford him, nor a sophism he could borrow from
rhetoric, nor