again in the same place where we had prayed together so much. My mother is making wonderful progress, and would fain not set out again any more. René, to whom I had described it all, assures me that the reality surpasses my poetic pictures. How sweet and good a thing it is to pray together, and to be at the very well-spring of graces! Hélène is overflowing with joy. Adrien and Gertrude weep no more.… And we are soon to see and embrace you again, to spend a month near to you. I think we shall be in Paris on the 12th of July. Dearest Kate, I regret you here! Oh! the inconstancy of my poor heart, so happy to give up to God the better part of itself, and then desiring to take it back again. The gifts of the Lord alone are without repentance. O sweet, delightful, perfect friend! nothing can separate our souls, always fraternally united in the adorable Heart which gave itself for us.

La Salette! La Salette! To say to one’s self that here, where we tread, Mary has passed; that her voice, more melodious than all the harps of Eden, has been heard upon these heights; that this sky has beheld her tears, her propitiatory and beloved tears, mysterious pearls which should be gathered up by a seraph; to pray here, where the Mother of the Saviour has herself taught prayer; oh! what felicity: Ecce quam bonum et quam jucundum habitare fratres in unum! Beloved, I have prayed for you, and soon now I shall see you. “Dear Georgina,” my mother said to me yesterday, “may God reward you for the sacrifice you have made for me!” Between this super-excellent mother, René, Hélène, and myself there passes a continual interchange of thoughts and feelings,

and I could even say amongst us all.

Yours now and always, my sister.

*  *  *  *  *

August 12, 1867.

What, already? so soon? and we must resume our correspondence! Again I have quitted you, my Kate, my visible angel guardian … Hélène is also gone. The heavenly Spouse has placed in his own garden this delicate and charming flower, for which this world had no dew that was pure enough. “Let us be saints,” she writes to me; “it is only at this price that we may purchase heaven.” And I answer her: “It is also only at this price that this life is endurable; that the departures, the separations, the pain of absence, too sensible an image of death, can be courageously accepted.” Dear Kate, where shall we find each other now? May God protect you! Brittany enchants me. I walk along the beach; make people tell me all the legends of the country; hunt with René; but most often slip away into the little village church, or into the chapel of the château. We have an organ, and consequently superb festivals. Our almoner is a college friend of my brother’s; he has been kind enough to undertake Arthur’s education for a time, and we are all very glad of this arrangement; this good abbé is really a learned man; the little girls are profiting largely by his stores of information, and we are busy with collections, botany, maps, etc. This savant is moreover a traveller: he is lately returned from the new world! And hence we have stories of most exciting interest. My Picciola dreams about them. In short, the new-comer has already turned all the heads of the infantine world, and our Breton life will be at the

very least as animated and joyous as our life at Orleans.

I am expecting Margaret, who says that she is coming to visit me, without naming the day. Our habitation is beautiful, antique, vast; with halls like those described by Sir Walter Scott. It is surrounded by immense woods, and brightened by a profusion of flowers. There too is the sea, blue and profound, image of life, with its waves and hidden rocks. I never look at it without an inexpressible longing to pass over it to behold again my Ireland. Kate, Kate, what a charm do not memories possess!

René is writing to you. I have not described to you my rooms, so exquisitely ornamented according to my own taste. Let us praise God, my sister!