Page 163, we read, "The fanatical passion of the nuns for their confessors, priests, and monks, exceeds belief. That which especially renders their incarceration endurable is the illimitable opportunity they enjoy of seeing and corresponding with those persons with whom they are in love. This freedom localizes and identifies them with the convent so closely that they are unhappy when, on account of any serious sickness, or while preparing to take the veil, they are obliged to pass some months in the bosom of their own families, in company with their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters. It is not to be presumed that these relatives would permit a young girl to pass many hours each day in a mysterious colloquy with a priest, or a monk, and maintain with him this continual correspondence. This is a liberty which they can enjoy in the convent only. "Many are the hours which the Heloise spends in the confessional, in agreeable pastime with her Abelard in cassock. "Others, whose confessors happen to be old, have in addition a spiritual director, with whom they amuse themselves a long time every day, _tete-a-tete_, in the parlatorio. When this is not enough, they simulate an illness, in order to have him alone in their own rooms." Page 166, we read:--"Another nun, being somewhat infirm, her priest confessed her in her own room. After a time, the invalid penitent found herself in what is called an interesting situation, on which account, the physician declaring that her complaint was dropsy, she was sent away from the convent." Page 167:--"A young educanda was in the habit of going down every night to the convent burial-place, where, by a corridor which communicated with the vestry, she entered into a colloquy with a young priest attached to the church. Consumed by an amorous impatience, she was not deterred from these excursions either by bad weather or the fear of being discovered. "She heard a great noise one night near her. In the thick darkness which surrounded her, she imagined that she saw a viper winding itself around her feet. She was so much overcome by fright that she died from the effects of it a few months later." Page 168:--"One of the confessors had a young penitent in the convent. Every time he was called to visit a dying sister, and on that account passed the night in the convent, this nun would climb over the partition which separated her room from his, and betake herself to the master and director of souls. "Another, during the delirium of a typhoid fever, from which she was suffering, was constantly imitating the action of sending kisses to her confessor, who stood by the side of her bed. He, covered with blushes on account of the presence of strangers, held a crucifix before the eyes of the penitent, and in a commiserating tone exclaimed,-- "'Poor thing! kiss thy own spouse!'"