We shall make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Saint of the sea-coast. Margaret almost worships Brittany. Why does she not settle here entirely? Our poor received her with rejoicings. Her generous hand is always open. She has given me fresh news of the châlet. Edith is well; Mistress Annah is in her element, lavish of her time and strength. Lizzy is expecting a second treasure. The saintly Isa overflows with happiness, and her pretty little namesake has truly been given by God as the angel of consolation.
Bossuet has called friendship “A covenant of two souls who unite together to love God.” What a name, dear Kate, to give to this sentiment, which binds together all our souls here, and yours with them, in one and the same affection? Nothing, alas! is more rare than terrestrial happiness, and thus at each stroke of death I bow my head; it is an expiation! Nothing could be more pure and sweet and full of enchantment than our existence,
were it not that the mourning of the heart too frequently came to obscure it.
Picciola is weaving a garland of corn-flowers near my writing-table. Her waxen whiteness renders her almost transparent. How often I ask her, “Do you suffer at all?” and her answer is, “Oh! so little, so little!” We must not speak of it, for fear of alarming my mother. She does not cough, she has no fever. What has she? Gertrude shares my fears, and agrees with me that there is some mystery in this. What? Who will tell it us? Raoul and Berthe take every care of her, caress her.
Adieu, dear Kate!
June 25, 1869.
A brilliant baptism—something quite fairy-like, and which our Bretons will long remember. The old curé shed tears when he poured the holy water on the brow of the new Christian. Ah! my God, may he be thine for ever.
Margaret was beaming with pleasure at our all being together again. Her beauty exceeds all description, and eclipses that of all other women. Happily, our Bretonnes do not know what it is to be jealous. There was a ball, dearest—a grand ball—and the pretty feet of Thérèse and Anna still dance at the remembrance of it. Picciola was also there, whiter than her dress, with her loving gaze upon her mother. Oh! I do not deceive myself, Kate—death advances! I felt it yesterday. It was after the dinner; the guests were talking, and Mad quietly disappeared. I hastened to her room and found her kneeling on her prie-Dieu. “What ails you, dearest?” “Nothing, aunt; the noise wearies me; I want God.” These words moved the very depths
of my soul. Why, at this tender age, such aspirations towards the infinite, so many tears at the holy altar, such love of suffering? Blind and cowardly creature that I am, I do not wish this child to be an angel! Pray, dear Kate, ask strength for me! I have finished reading Elizabeth Seton. She is the Saint Chantal of America. This work is at the same time, in my opinion, very superior to that of the Abbé Bougaud because of the incomparable charm of the heroine. With that, it is another Alexandrine de la Ferronays. It seems as if I had had a vision: so much youth, innocence, love, and misfortune; Providence wonderfully directing this holy soul; these astonishing conversions and vocations taking place in America; the apostolic and eminent men; the events, so varied, from the Lazaretto of Leghorn to the valley of Emmittsburg. Oh! how wonderful is God in his elect. Fancy, dear Kate: a Protestant lady goes to Leghorn with her husband, who is in a decline. They are detained for a long time at the Lazaretto. Oh! you should read these pages. Elizabeth saw her William die in sight of that land which he had trusted would cure him! And she blessed God for all! A widow with five children, she quitted Italy after having had a perception of the truth; arrived at New York, she became a Catholic. Her family abandoned her. She opened a school, and, after many trials heroically borne, she founded a convent of Daughters of Charity. Become a religious, two of her children died in her arms. O these deaths!—the sweet little Rebecca saying: “In heaven I shall offend God no more! I shall sin no more, mamma—I shall sin no more!” It is
beautiful, all of it—beautiful! Thus will Picciola die, alas!