I got up and sponged myself, then lay down to reflect on the curious and delicious emotions I had procured for myself, and determining to soon have a repetition of my secrets joys, fell asleep to dream of being in the arms of a most lovely boy about my own age, who seemed to impart to my ravished senses another taste of what I had already felt.
Awaking in a struggle to retain my love-bird, I found myself bedewed by another emission, but at last I slept with tranquility, and never shall I forget my first taste of joy that day.
My father’s extreme severity made me rather glad when in about a week’s time Miss Birch began to make preparations for my departure to Belgium, and in less than three weeks I found myself installed as a pupil in the seminary of the Ursuline nuns at Brussels. The Lady Superior struck me from the very first as being a frightfully severe woman; the morning after my arrival she sent for me to hear her read my father’s instructions, and remarked that he had given her _carte blanche_ as to punishment, and that in their school discipline was strictly enforced. “Remember, young lady,” said she, in dismissing me from her presence, “we never overlook a fault, and that my word is law here.”
My face flushed with indignation, and tears filled my eyes as I left the apartment, fully assured in my own mind that I must soon experience a taste of their discipline, nor had I long to wait, for two days after, having confidentially expressed my disgust to another pupil, with respect to the coarse fare set before us at meals, I soon found I had been talking to a tell-tale spy, who carried everything to the Superior.
An elderly nun quietly told me she had been sent to conduct me to the private room of the Lady Superior. My time was come, and I followed my chaperone with trembling anxiety.
Our Superior was a stern looking woman of about forty-five, with dark piercing eyes and Roman nose, thin compressed lips considerably adding to the severity of her expression.
“Mdlle. Lucille,” said the superior, “I thought the caution I gave you on your arrival, would at least have saved you from trouble for some time, and spared me the pain of inflicting personal correction on you so soon after your entry into our seminary, but I am afraid your papa must have had serious cause for wishing me to be severe with you; now what have you been saying to your fellow pupil the Mdlle. Olive; did you remark, ‘that the food was not fit for a dog, much less schoolgirls’?”