I think that those who read through this book will readily acknowledge that Miss Povey has done her work well, and I feel sure she will receive the hearty congratulations of a great number of persons. She has been obliged to write under some considerable disadvantages, arising from the nature of her employment, which does not allow a very wide margin of time for writing; consequently, as she reminded me, she has had no time to look over and correct what force of circumstances compelled her to write somewhat hurriedly.
“I shall be much obliged,” she has written to me, “for any improvement you think fit to make, in correcting, revising, rescinding, in all the manuscript.” Any excellence that may be found in the book must be wholly due to the authoress; none could have written in the forcible and graphic way she has done, who had not herself passed through so strange and painful an experience.
I have only had one interview with Miss Povey, and that when the book was well nigh finished. But before then I took great pains to find out the thorough trustworthiness of her antecedents and statements. God forbid that I should ever venture to send before the public a work of such deep import, were I not perfectly convinced that ex-sister Mary Agnes was in a position to write, and actually was writing, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I have by me a letter written by the Mother Abbess of the Feltham convent, to the lady in whose employment Miss Povey is now living, giving her, as will be acknowledged by all, a very high character for truthfulness and uprightness.
The Convent, Feltham,
Sept. 14th, 1887.
Dear Madam,—
Miss J. M. Povey lived in my house for ten years, and I knew of her before and since.
She bears, and has always borne, the highest moral character; all her relations are highly respectable people. She is thoroughly conscientious and trustworthy, clever and observant, and speaks well. She is a good needlewoman, and I should think quite capable of undertaking what you require of her, and is one who would do her work quite as well in your absence as if you were at home superintending her.
She is quite above the ordinary station of domestic servants. There is no mystery in her life.