We arrived home--at St. Vincent's Hospital, Portland--on September thirtieth, after an absence of nearly four months, and I wish to impress upon you that in all our travels we did not receive one cent from our order--and they never once offered us any money to pay any of our expenses or showed us any sisterly solicitude. CHAPTER IX. I RECEIVE MY DIPLOMA FOR NURSING FROM ST. VINCENT'S HOSPITAL--TROUBLE AMONG THE SISTERS. Hundreds of people take trips like Sister Rita and I took in 1907 every year and there is nothing said about it, for it is only a common trip for the people of the world. But for two nuns in their garb to travel from one side of the continent to the other, and from the north to the south, on a trip like this, is extraordinary. In all my sisterhood life, I have never known any other two sisters to go on such a trip. I have known them to take longer trips, some of them to Europe, but always on business. Once more at the hospital where we had spent so many years in drudgery, the smoldering pride and natural ambition which had been suppressed and rudely beaten and forced into oblivion, came from the hiding place with renewed vigor. We realized that a great _something_ had taken place within us. We could not see things in the same light as before. The trip had been educational for us, and the knowledge acquired had driven deep into our hearts the conviction of the truth with such power that we found a terrible battle raging within us--Romish convent "rot" on one side and light on the other. What were we to do? We had no homes, no place to go to live the remainder of our earthly sojourn; we had served the best part of our lives for the Roman institution and were no longer young; our health was not the best; helpless from every point of view, it was a plain case of go to work, "for better or for worse." It was impossible for us to believe opened-eyed the foolishness of all the silly superstitions we had so long lived, and yet from it there was no escape, as it was by rule and practice and demand, compulsory. We talked it over and realized that we stood in need of a remedy to counteract the wiles of darkness--neither allopathic nor homeopathic prescription could accomplish this for us, and we knew from experience that the Romish priest could do nothing for us as he was the fountain head of the darkness and ignorance, except perhaps administer a spiritual emetic in the confessional. So we just took up our part of the work as tools, grinding for the Roman machine.