The order of the Buried Alive in Rome, the Convent of the Sepolte Vivo, is a remnant of the Middle Ages in the life of to-day. The London Queen's correspondent had the privilege of an entrance within, one after another, of the five iron doors, and talking with the Mother Superior through the thick swathing of a woollen veil, but ordinary communication with the convent is carried on through the "barrel," which fills an opening in the wall. Over the barrel is written: "Who will live contented within these walls, let her leave at the gate every earthly care." You knock at the barrel, which turns slowly around till it shows a section like that of an orange from which one of the quarters has been cut.

You speak to the invisible sister, who asks your will; and she answers you in good Italian and cultivated intonation. You hear the voice quite distinctly, but as if it was far, far away. She is really separated from you by a slender slice of wood, but she is absolutely invisible. Not the smallest ray of light, nor the smallest chink is visible between you and her. Sound travels through the barrel, but sight is absolutely excluded. These nuns live on charity, keeping two Lents in the year—one from November to Christmas, the other the ordinary Lent of Catholic Christendom. Living, therefore, on charity, they may eat whatever is given to them, saving always "flesh meat" during the fasting time.

If you take them a cake or a loaf of bread, a roll of chocolate bonbons, a basket of eggs, it is all good for them. They must be absolutely without food for twenty-four hours before they may ask help from the outside world; and when they have looked starvation in the face, then they may ring a bell, which means: "Help us! we are famishing!" Perhaps you take them nothing eatable, but you place on the edge of the cut orange, by which you sit, some money, demanding in return their "cartolini," or little papers.

The barrel turns slowly round, then back again, and you find on the ledge, where you had laid your lire, a paper of "cartolini." These are very small, thin, light-printed slips, neatly folded in tiny packets, three to each packet, which, if you swallow in faith, will cure you of all disease. After your talk is ended, the barrel turns around once more and presents its face as of an immovable and impenetrable-looking barrier. One of the pretty traditions of Rome is, that each sister has her day, when she throws a flower over the convent wall as a sign to her watching friends that she is still alive. When she has been gathered to the majority, the flower is not thrown, and the veil has fallen forever.