In that age hardship and privation were usually considered necessary to goodness. Catherine was so intent on meriting the virtue which her visions had seemed to predict for her that she allowed herself no comforts. More than that she made herself endure many hardships. She took for her room a small cell under her father's house, lighted by only one window. Her bed was made of a few planks with a log of wood for a pillow. Here she felt herself to be as much alone as though she were a hermit in the woods, and here she spent hours in meditation and in reciting long prayers. She wore rough clothes and she gradually trained herself to do with very little sleep and almost no food. She got to the point where she allowed herself only a half hour's sleep at a time and could live on a little bread, some raw herbs, and a cup of water. She had been very strong, but this severe way of living told greatly on her health. Her mother, however, was much disturbed at these hardships which Catherine insisted on imposing upon herself, and tried to win her to a more healthful life. She begged her to give up her hard wood bed and sleep with her. Catherine did not want to vex her by refusing, and agreed to this, but as soon as her mother was asleep she slipped out of bed and stole down-stairs to her own chamber. She was back again before her mother woke. After a night or two of this Madame Lapa discovered the ruse, and begged Catherine to stay in bed with her. Thereupon the girl arranged two pieces of wood under the sheet so that she would have to lie on them, thinking she would discipline herself in this way. It was evident that she would have her own will, and so at last her mother gave in. "Daughter," she said, "I see well it boots not for me to strive with you any longer. It is but time wasted. Go your way and rest at whatever times and in what manner you will." Catherine was so determined to imitate the early saints of the Church, who had in many cases seemed to win virtue by the pains they endured, that she now took to beating herself with rods and wearing a sharp-pointed chain underneath her dress. She did all these things in the hope that she might one day be considered worthy to join the order of Sisters of the Blessed Dominic. These new hardships were too much for her strength and she became ill. Her good mother, more disturbed than ever, insisted on taking her daughter to the baths of Vignone, which were famous for the healing effect of the sulphur in the water. On the very first day Catherine placed herself under the spout where the sulphurous water came scalding hot into the bath, and standing there suffered silently greater pains from the hot water than she had been able to inflict upon herself at home. Madame Benincasa, upbraiding her daughter for what seemed to her the sheerest madness, brought her back to Siena, and there Catherine, worn out and only a shadow of her former strong self, took to her bed for a time.