discountenanced, nevertheless, it is impossible but that
it should in some degree prevail in the nursery. Nor was
it probable that I should escape this infections malady,
having passed my whole days in an atmosphere, charged
more than any other with that impure miasma priest-craft."]

Then immediately I heard the question, and it seemed to
come from the figure of Christ, "Will you obey? Will you
leave off sin?" I answered in the affirmative as well as
I could, for the convulsive sobs that shook my frame
almost stopped my utterance. I now know that when the
priest left me, he placed himself, or an assistant, behind
a curtain close to the images, and it was his voice that
I heard. But I was then too young to detect their
treacherous practices and deceitful ways.

On being taken back to the Superior, I was immediately
attacked with severe illness, and had fits all night. It
seemed to me that I could see that image of the devil
everywhere. If I closed my eyes, I thought I could feel
him on my bed, pressing on my breast, and he was so heavy
I could scarcely breathe. I was very sick, and suffered
much bodily pain, but the tortures of an excited imagination
were greater by far, and harder to bear than any physical
suffering. For long years after, that image haunted my
dreams, and even now I often, in sleep, live over again
the terrors of that fearful scene. I was sick a long
time; how long I do not know; but I became so weak I
could not raise myself in bed, and they had an apparatus
affixed to the wall to raise me with. For several days