Hereat Sidonia laughed as if she would die. She would tell them
the whole trick. They all knew what a trouble to the convent was
this Anna Apenborg from her curiosity--not once or twice, but ten
times a day, running in and out with her chat and gossip. She had
tried all means to prevent her, but in vain. Even in the middle of
her prayers, the said Anna would come in to tell her what one
sister was cooking, and another getting, or some follies even
quite unfit for chaste ears. And that last night being very sick,
she sent for the priest, upon which she heard Anna calling out
from the window to the porter, "Will he come? will he come?"
Item, she had then crept down to listen at the door. So
after the priest went, notwithstanding all her weakness, she
(Sidonia) determined to give her a good fright, and thus prevent
her from spying and listening any more. Then she called Wolde, and
bid her dance, while she muttered some words out of the
cookery-book. But here Anna called out, "It is not true; there
were three danced. Where is the carl with the deep bass
voice? Who could this be at that midnight hour, but the devil
bodily himself?"

At this, Sidonia laughed louder than before. It was her cat--her
own cat, who was springing about the room, because for divers
reasons she had put little red hose on him. On this she stoops
under the bed, seizes my cat by the leg, who howls (that was the
deep bass voice), and flings him into the middle of the room,
where all the nuns, when they beheld his strange jumps and springs
in the little hose, burst out into loud laughter, in which the
abbess herself could not refrain from joining. So as there was no
evidence against Sidonia, and Anna Apenborg was truly held of all