Her eyes chanced to fall on a coil of picture-cord, and the sight of it gave her a new and startling thought. She paused a moment, then, rising, pulled her curtains close, opened the door to assure herself that there was no one in the corridor outside, then shut the door and locked it. This done, she looped and knotted the cord into a discipline--ah! not in vain had she once asked Father Rasle what that was. Her hands trembled with eagerness while she fastened the five lashes together. Then, with one glowing upward glance, she knelt, and brought the discipline, with the full force of her arm, round across her shoulders. A faint cry followed the first blow, and the blood rushed crimson over her face and neck. “O Lord! I did not mean to cry out!” she whispered, and listened, and struck again, and yet again. “One for each of the five wounds, one for each of the times he prayed in the garden.” She paused, and dropped forward with her face on the floor, writhing in silent pain. “Now, one for each station of the way of the cross.” Tears ran down her cheeks, but her strong young arm and heart did not falter. “Now, a decade of the rosary.” Sobbing, half-fainting, she rose after a while, and hid the precious pencil, with which she had painted a picture for the wall of her little reception-room. “I must put on something extra, so that the blood shall not show through my dress,” she said; but, looking to wipe away the blood, behold! not a drop was there, but only long welts of red and white crossing her fair shoulders. Edith hid her face, with a _feeling_ of utter humiliation and grief. She had been agonizing under the blows which had produced only a few marks, and yet fancying that she imitated him whose flesh had been torn by the lash, and whose blood had flowed in streams. “I can do nothing, nothing! I am silly and presumptuous,” were the thoughts with which she finished her preparation to go out. 26 But, trivial as her penance had been, it brought humility, and a deeper sense of the sufferings of our Lord. A servant who was washing the steps as Edith went out, smiled gratefully to the pleasant greeting of the young lady, and looked after her as she went down the street. The servants, all Catholics, were very proud and fond of this young Catholic in their Protestant household. “Since I cannot do anything,” Edith pursued, as she walked on toward the church, “I will ask the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph to come first, and be in my house when the Lord shall enter. He will be pleased to find them there. Then, when the time comes, I will go and meet him at the door; but how dreadfully ashamed I shall be! I shall not dare to look up, but I shall say, ‘Welcome, Lord!’ and kneel down, and kiss his feet. Then, if there is anything more to be done, he will do it, for I can do nothing. How odd it is that I should feel so ashamed at having him come to me, and yet should want him to come! I wouldn’t put it off for anything.”