I am sure that you can give her a great deal of pleasure." "Is she ill ?" said Joyce, timidly drawing back as the nun started across the room.
"No, I think not," was the answer.

"She says she can't bear to be herded in one room with all those poor creatures, like a flock of sheep, with nothing to do but wait for death.

She has always been accustomed to having a room of her own, so that her greatest trial is in having no privacy.

She must eat, sleep, and live with a hundred other old women always around her.

She comes up here to bed whenever she can find the slightest ache for an excuse, just to be by herself.