duty to disclose them before I died. To have a knowledge of those things, and leave the world without making them known, appeared to me like a great sin: whenever I could divest myself of the impression made upon me, by the declarations and arguments of the Superior, nuns, and priests, of the duty of submitting to every thing, and the necessary holiness of whatever the latter did or required.

The evening but one before the period which I anticipated with so much anxiety, I was sitting alone, and began to indulge in reflections of this kind. It seemed to me that I must be near the close of my life, and I determined to make a disclosure at once. I spoke to Mrs. Ford, a woman whose character I respected, a nurse in the hospital, in number twenty-three. I informed her that I had no expectation of living long, and had some things on my mind which I wished to communicate before it should be too late. I added, that I should prefer to tell them to Mr. T---, the chaplain, of which she approved, as she considered it a duty to do so under those circumstances. I had no opportunity, however, to converse with Mr. T. at that time, and probably my purpose, of disclosing the facts already given in this book, would never have been executed, but for what subsequently took place.

It was alarm which had led me to form such a determination; and when the period of trial had been safely passed, and I had a prospect of recov-