All the girls in the dormitory suddenly wakened, screamed in concert with Elizabeth, and many of them sprang out of bed in affright. I could just discern their figures moving helplessly about in the darkness. Suddenly the door opened, and Sister Mary Austin appeared; by the light of a lantern swinging from the hall ceiling opposite the door I could see that she was shaking all over, but she tried to control the trembling of her voice, as she called out, "Girls, don't be frightened! There can't be any danger, but you had better dress yourselves."

The younger girls ran up to her, and clung to her screaming, "O, the mob, the mob, - we shall all be killed! O, what shall we do, what will become of us?"

From The Burning of the Convent, by Louisa Whitney (James R. Osgood & Co., 1877).