“I was laundress in a priest’s house for several years. His sister lived with him, and she really was his sister, for a wonder; not the sort they generally call their ‘sisters.’ They also kept a young girl to help in the house, for the priest was well off. One day my fellow-servant committed a sin, for the devil tempted her to steal a ring belonging to the Señora. But she could not rest happy with it, and at last she went to a priest and confessed that she had stolen it, and asked what she should do. He told her to put it back, and gave her a penance. So she put it back. And the priest went and told her mistress, and she sent the girl to prison.” “There are several maidservants in the house of Doña Dolores, and one of them goes to confession frequently. The others all have to be very careful what they say before her, for the priest repeats it all to Doña Dolores, and then it is ‘into the street’ with those who have done anything silly or wrong in the kitchen or elsewhere.” A friend of mine--a foreigner--was begged by her servants not to engage an attractive-looking housemaid from one of the convent training schools who applied for a situation. “She will repeat everything that is done in the house to her priest, and he will make unpleasantness for you and us too. That is done every day here. We who have not had the misfortune to be brought up in a convent never, if we can help it, take a situation where a convent-trained girl lives.” “Juan Cabrito was hung through the priest telling the authorities that he had confessed that he was a murderer. The priest went straight to the Governor and told him everything Cabrito had said. He well deserved hanging, and no one thought anything of the priest betraying his confession. We are quite used to that in Spain.” “I often used to be called in to help to wait in the evening in the house of a priest who had a _tertulia_ for priests every week. His niece kept house for him. I have often heard the priests laughing and joking about the confessions of the nuns. They would imitate their voices, speaking high up and whining: ‘Father, I lost my temper and spoke harshly to the dog or the cat to-day.’ ‘How tedious they are with their dogs and their cats and their tempers!’ the priest who confessed the nuns would say, and then they all laughed together, very much amused. But it was wrong, for the priest is forbidden to repeat a confession. I am not very fond of the nuns myself, but I did not like to hear those coarse men [_nombres brutos_] making jokes about their penitence.” “It is many years since I have confessed. When I went to confess before my wedding the priest asked me a question which no man should put to a decent woman, so I never went again.”