A few extracts from Bishop Poore's "Ancren Riewle," already several times alluded to, will give life to the picture we have painted. Though intended for the general use of recluses, it seems to have been specially addressed, in the first instance, to three sisters, who, in the bloom of youth, forsook the world, and became the tenants of a reclusorium. It would seem that in such cases each recluse had a separate cell, and did not communicate, except on rare occasions, with her fellow inmates; and each had her own separate servant to wait upon her. Here are some particulars as to their communication with the outer world. "Hold no conversation with any man out of a church window, but respect it for the sake of the Holy Sacrament which ye see there through;[156] and at other times (other whiles) take your women to the window of the house (huses thurle), other men and women to the parlour-window to speak when necessary; nor ought ye (to converse) but at these two windows." Here we have three windows; we have no difficulty in understanding which was the church-window, and the parlour-window--the window _pour parler_; but what was the house-window, through which the recluse might speak to her servant? Was it merely the third glazed window, through which she might, if it were convenient, talk with her maid, but not with strangers, because she would be seen through it? or was it a window in the larger anchorholds, between the recluse cell, and the other apartment in which her maid lived, and in which, perhaps, guests were entertained? The latter seems the more probable explanation, and will receive further confirmation when we come to the directions about the entertainment of guests. The recluse was not to give way to the very natural temptation to put her head out of the open window, to get sometimes a wider view of the world about her. "A peering anchoress, who is always thrusting her head outward," he compares to "an untamed bird in a cage"--poor human bird! In another place he gives a more serious exhortation on the same subject "Is not she too forward and foolhardy who holds her head boldly forth on the open battlements while men with crossbow bolts without assail the castle? Surely our foe, the warrior of hell, shoots, as I ween, more bolts at one anchoress than at seventy and seven secular ladies. The battlements of the castle are the windows of their houses; let her not look out at them, lest she have the devil's bolts between her eyes before she even thinks of it." Here are directions how to carry on her "parlements":--"First of all, when you have to go to your parlour-window, learn from your maid who it is that is come; ... and when you must needs go forth, go forth in the fear of God to a priest, ... and sit and listen, and not cackle." They were to be on their guard even with religious men, and not even confess, except in presence of a witness. "If any man requests to see you (_i.e._ to have the