Each sitting-room contained a table, a sofa, three or four chairs, a small book-shelf, and a praying-stool provided with a hard and well-worn cushion for the knees.

Over this a brown wooden crucifix was hung upon the gray wall.
In the majority of convents it is not usual, nor even permissible, for ladies in retreat to descend to the nuns' refectory.

When there are many guests they are usually served by lay sisters in a hall set apart for the purpose; when there are few, their simple meals are brought to them in their rooms.

Moreover they of course put on no religious robe, though they dress themselves in black.

In the church, or chapel, as the case may be, they do not take places within the latticed choir with the sisters, but either sit in the body of the building, or occupy a side chapel reserved for their use, or else perform their devotions kneeling at high windows above the choir, which communicate within with rooms accessible from the convent.