Page:Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk (Truslove & Bray).djvu/25

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MARIA MONK

CHAPTER IV.


TEACHING AT St. DENIS-

and marriage.


AFTER I had been a novice four or five years from the time I commenced school in the Convent, one day I was treated by one of the nuns in a manner which displeased me, and because I expressed some resentment, I was required to beg her pardon. Not being satisfied with this, although I complied with the command, nor with the coldness with which the Superior treated me, I determined to quit the Convent at once, which I did without asking leave. There would have been no obstacle to my departure, novice as I then was, if I had asked permission; but I was too much displeased to wait for that, and went home without speaking to any one.

I soon after visited the town of St. Denis where I saw two young ladies with whom I had been formerly acquainted in Montreal, and one of them a school-mate at Mr. Workman's School. After some conversation with me, and learning that I had known a lady who kept a school in the place, they advised me to apply to her to be imployed as her assistant teacher; for she was then instructing the government school in that place.

I visited her, and found her willing, and I engaged at once as her assistant.

The government society paid her £20 a year: she was obliged to teach ten children gratuitously; might have fifteen pence a month, for each ten scholars more, and then she was at liberty, according to the