'There is no need,' she said, 'for more than one of us to behold such monstrous evil. 'Tis a society of fiends, Lucy, a training-school for all vice, and the keeper is worthy of it. I think it is not less than acted blasphemy to throw good men into it; as well send them alive into hell. The Lord look upon it, and require it.' 'Are there any of the Friends shut up there?' I asked. 'There have been hundreds, I am told,' she said; 'even now there are too many, but they die daily of fever and misery;' and she stopped short, presently saying, 'If I find him not, I will not repent of my search. I have fed some starving saints already.' So she continued her visits and her inquiries. But I began to find it an almost unbearable penance to stay within doors alone in her absence; I prayed and struggled for composure, but could not attain it, and at last I said I must go out sometimes to breathe the air. She warned me of perils awaiting me if I walked abroad by myself, but I got some poor coarse black clothes that I put on, and a hood to hide my face; and I sometimes added to these a cloth tied about my neck, such as I had seen on poor creatures who had sores. It was an artifice, but I hope not a sinful one; for in this disguise, and contriving to behave like a sick languishing person, I was more terrible to disorderly people than they to me, and they kept at a good distance from me. Thus I took many a walk about the streets; but my chief comfort was only to see a variety of dismal objects. The street where we dwelt was quite grass-grown and empty; I do not think there were above two inhabited houses in it, nor would you see above half a dozen people go through it, in all the length of the summer's day. Of the passengers that I met elsewhere, I think two out of every three were poor sickly objects with sores and plasters upon them; and sometimes it was my luck to meet coffins of those dead of the sickness; for now there could be no strict observing of the rule to bury them by night, the number of such funerals increasing at a frightful rate. CHAPTER XI. HOW THERE CAME NEW GUESTS INTO THE HOUSE.