Attended by some of the nuns, and often go away with the highest ideas of our charitable characters and holy lives. The physician himself might, perhaps, in some cases share in the delusion.
I frequently followed Dr. Nelson through the public hospital, at the direction of the Superior, with pen, ink, and paper, in my hands, and wrote down the prescriptions which he ordered for the different patients. These were afterwards prepared and administered by the attendants.
About a year before I left the Convent, I was first appointed to attend the private sick-rooms, and was frequently employed in that duty up to the day of my departure. Of course I had opportunities to observe the number and classes of patients treated there; and in what I am to say on the subject, I appeal, with perfect confidence, to any true and competent witness to confirm my words, whenever such a witness may appear.
It would be in vain for anybody who has merely visited the Convent from curiosity, or resided in it as a novice, to question my declarations. Such a person must necessarily be ignorant of even the existence of the private rooms, unless informed by some one else. Such rooms, however, there are, and I could relate many things which have passed there during the hours I was employed in them, as I have stated.
One night I was called to sit up with an old nun, named St. Claire, who, in going down stairs, had dislocated a limb, and lay in a sick-room adjoining the hospital. She seemed to be a little out of her head a part of the time, but appeared to be quite in possession of her reason most of the night. It was easy to pretend that she was delirious: but I considered her as speaking the truth, though I felt reluctant to repeat what I hear her say, and excused myself from mentioning it even at confession, on the ground that the Superior thought her deranged.
