One word only, after nine days, my dear! Get for me fifty Masses
said at Notre Dame des Victoires. The poor have been occupying me during all this time. René has asked me to be his secretary, in order that some important business may be the more promptly despatched; and it is so great a happiness to me to oblige him.
We go to Cléry to-morrow, weather permitting.
Tell me still to hope, dear Kate!
May 26, 1869.
Mistress Annah is truly the most devoted soul I know. Mary and Ellen have had the measles, and she alone has nursed them. Edith has an attack on the chest—not very serious, happily—caught in the exercise of charity; and it is again our dear old friend who is at her bedside. Lizzy writes me word of all this. Little Isa is pretty and good; the saint Isa is always singing her Te Deum.
René gave me a new book yesterday: Elizabeth Seton, and the Beginnings of the Catholic Church in the United States, by Mme. de Barberey. I have glanced through it, and find it admirable. I shall speak of it to you again.
We shall be in Paris on the 1st of June—René, Marcella, Picciola, Anna, and I. Rejoice, dear Kate! Moreover, there is some thought of our staying in Paris for the winter, and it is possibly an almost eternal adieu that we are about to bid Orleans. Johanna wishes to be nearer Arthur. You may well suppose that I make every effort to incline the balance in this direction; but my mother says sadly: “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof: it is useless to plan so much beforehand.” It is an affection of youth—projects reaching out of sight, illusions, dreams, as if life were to last for ever!
Picciola is always calm. I often surprise her looking up to heaven, and lately I heard her say: “How happy it must be on high!” Oh! the Saint of the sea-coast was right: there is something of heaven in this child! Hope—hope ever!
Raoul, Berthe, and Thérèse start to-morrow with arms and baggage. Johanna and her household will follow shortly after. Long live Brittany! Mme. Swetchine used to say: “What evil can happen to him who knows that God does everything, and who loves beforehand all that God does?” When, Kate, shall I attain to this? That noble woman said again: “Our tears are the beverage which, with the bread of the Word, suffices to our daily necessities: our tears shed into the bosom of God. What should we be without them? It is, at the same time, the baptismal water of sorrow and the regenerating stream. Happy they who weep; happy when the Lord looks upon them through their streaming eyes; happy when his hand dries their tears!”