One day, after I had been received three, or four months, I was sent to walk through it on my knees, with another nun, as a penance. This, and other penances, were sometimes put upon us by the priests, without any reason assigned. The common way, indeed, was to tell us of the sin for which a penance was imposed, but we were left many times to conjecture. Now and then, the priest would inform us at a subsequent confession, when he happened to recollect something about it, as I thought, and not because he reflected, or cared much upon the subject.

The nun who was with me led through the cellar, passing to the right of the secret burying-place, and showed me the door of the subterraneous passage, which was at the extremity towards the Congregational Nunnery. The reasons why I had not noticed it before, I presume were, that it was made to shut close and even with the wall; and all that part of the cellar was whitewashed. The door, which is of wood, and square, opens with a latch into a passage about four feet and a half high. We immediately got upon our knees, commenced saying the prayers required, and began to move slowly along the dark and narrow passage. It may be fifty or sixty feet in length; when we reached the end, we opened a door, and found ourselves in the cellar of the Congregational Nunnery, at some distance from the outer wall; for the covered way is carried in