"Then," resumed the superior, "if the case appears a serious one, we
exhort our befriended one to observe what passes more attentively, so as
to convince herself whether she had really reason to be alarmed. She
makes a new report to us, and should it confirm our first fears, faithful
to our pious guardianship, we withdraw her instantly from the house.
Moreover, as the majority of our young people, notwithstanding their
innocence and virtue, have not always sufficient experience to
distinguish what may be injurious to their soul's health, we think it
greatly to their interest that they should confide to us once a week, as
a child would to her mother, either in person or by letter, whatever has
chanced to occur in the house in which we have placed them. Then we can
judge for them, whether to withdraw them or not. We have already about a
hundred persons, companions to ladies, young women in shops, servants,
and needlewomen by the day, whom we have placed in a great number of
families, and, for the interest of all, we have every reason to
congratulate ourselves on this mode of proceeding. You understand me, do
you not, my dear daughter?"

"Yes-yes, mother," said the sempstress, more and more embarrassed. She
had too much uprightness and sagacity not to perceive that this plan of
mutually insuring the morality of masters and servants resembled a vast
spy system, brought home to the domestic hearth, and carried on by the
members of the institution almost without their knowledge, for it would
have been difficult to disguise more skillfully the employment for which
they were trained.

"If I have entered into these long details my dear daughter," resumed
Mother Sainte-Perpetue, taking the hearer's silence for consent, "it is
that you may not suppose yourself obliged to remain in the house in
question, if, against our expectation, you should not find there holy and