be, so I walked into the midst of them.
“‘What is this row about?’ I said. ‘I am ashamed of you; let me hear no more of it.’ Then taking the ringleader—we always know the one to pitch upon—I told her I must put her in prison; she made no resistance, only stipulating that the gardiens were not to touch her.”
“Are the gardiens cruel to them that they hate them so much?” I asked.
“No, never,” she answered; “they have no opportunity for it if they felt so inclined; but they represent strength and justice, whereas the nuns represent only weakness and pity; the prisoners resent the one, but not the other.”
Some one asked the superioress if she had ever known a conspiracy attempted to kill or hurt any of the sisters. She replied never, on which we related to her an episode of the Roman prisons, told us recently by the Papal Nuncio. The female prisons in Rome are, like St. Lazare, conducted entirely by nuns, without even the moral support of a poste at the gates to enforce their authority. One day a plot was organized for doing away with the nuns and making their own escape from the prison. The prisoners were sixty in number and the nuns twelve, so the scheme offered little serious difficulty. It was agreed that on a certain day when all the community were assembled with the prisoners in the workroom, the latter were to seize the nuns and fling them out of the windows into the yard. The signal agreed upon was the close of the work-hour, when the superioress clapped her hands for them to put aside their work. The secret was so well kept that not a hint transpired, but the superioress felt instinctively there was something abnormal brewing.
She had no apprehension at the moment, however, and gave the signal as usual when the clock struck the hour. No one moved. She repeated it. Still no one stirred. She gave it a third time more emphatically, and then the leader of the band walked straight up to her and struck her a blow on the face. The meek disciple of Jesus quietly knelt down, turned the other cheek, and said:
“If I have done you any harm, tell me so, but if not, why do you strike me?”
The woman fell upon her knees, burst into tears, and confessed everything. When the superioress had heard her to the end, she said:
“Now, my daughter, I must take you to the dungeon; you know this is my duty.”
“Yes, mother, I know it is,” and she gave her hand, and let herself be led away as meekly as a lamb.