Little reliable information as to the real unmiraculous events of Catherine Benincasa's life is to be obtained, as has been seen, from the pages of her professed biographer. But there is another pietistic work, forming part of the same "Ecclesiastical Library," in which Father Raymond's book has been recently reprinted, that offers somewhat better gleanings to the inquirer into the facts of the case. This is a reprint in four volumes (Milan, 1843–4) of the Saint's Letters, with the annotations of the Jesuit, Father Frederick Burlamacchi. These letters had been already several times published, when the learned Lucchese Jesuit undertook to edit them in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The former editions were imperfect, incorrect, and uncommented. But the Jesuit, jesuitlike, has done his work well; and his notes, appended to the end of each letter, contain abundant information respecting the persons to whom they are addressed, the events and people alluded to in them, and, wherever attainable, the dates at which they were written. To the labours therefore of Father Burlamacchi is due most of the information thrown together in the following concise account of Catherine's career; in which it is intended, leaving aside saintship and miracles for a moment, to give the reader a statement of those facts only which a sceptical inquirer may admit to be historical. [Sidenote: ACCEPTANCE BY THE "MANTELLATE."] Thus denuded of all devotional "improvement," and of all those portions of the narrative which alone clerical writers have for the most part thought much worth preserving, the story can present but a very skeleton outline indeed; for the notices of the Saint to be met with in contemporary lay writers are singularly few and scanty. Catherine was one of the youngest of a family of twenty-five children. Her twin sister died a few days after her birth. At a very early age she was observed to be taciturn, and solitary in her habits; and was remarkable for the small quantity of nourishment she took. At about twelve years old she manifested her determination to devote herself to a religious life. The modes of this manifestation, and the difficulties she encountered in carrying her wishes into execution against the opposition of her family, as related by her biographer, are curious; but cannot be admitted into this chapter of "facts."