all the neighborhood. The servants were sent out in different directions. I went in and out, listening to the slightest noise.… Nobody! My mother sent every one away and was praying. Impossible to remain in any one place. I was full of the most terrible conjectures. At last, at four o’clock in the morning, I hear a carriage. It is he! it is René—poor René, covered with dust, more anxious than we, on account of our alarm. Would you like to know the cause of this delay? It is like the parable of the Good Samaritan. René met with a poor old man who had hurt himself in cutting wood, and, after binding up the wound with some herbs and a pocket-handkerchief, he put him in the carriage and took him back to his cottage, which was at a great distance off. There he found a dying woman, who asked for a priest. To hasten to the nearest village and fetch the curé was René’s first thought. There was no sacristan, so René took the place of one, and passed the whole night between the dying woman and the wounded man. The good curé had other sick to attend to, but at two o’clock he arrived, and relieved God’s sentinel[85] (this is what the sweet Picciola calls him), who started homewards at a gallop.
You may imagine whether I am not very happy at this history. And yet I suffered very much; I feared everything, even death.
Love us, dear Kate.
TO BE CONTINUED.
[80] My soul is a ray of light and love, which, being separated for a day from the torch of divinity, far from God, is consumed by ardent aspirations, and burns to reascend to its fiery source.
[81] Conferences for Women in the World.
“Soft cradle which a jealous hand
Adorns and visits every hour,
Charm of the wife’s imaginings,