At _five_ years old, it was her practice in going up stairs to kneel at each step to the Virgin. She habitually flogged herself, and induced other children to imitate her in doing so, at six years of age. At seven, she deprived herself of a great portion of her food, secretly giving it to her brother, or throwing it to the cats. At the same age, she would watch from the window to see when a Dominican monk passed, and as soon as ever he had moved on, she used to run out and kiss the spot on the pavement on which he had placed his feet. [Sidenote: HER GREAT SIN.] At twelve years old, being then marriageable, her mother begged her to comb her hair and "wash her face oftener." But this she steadfastly refused to do, till her mother having requested a married sister for whom Catherine had the warmest affection, to use her influence with her, she yielded, and began to pay some attention to the cleanliness of her person and the neatness of her dress. "When she afterwards confessed this fault to me," says the "Blessed" Raymond, "she spoke of it with such sighs and tears, that you would have supposed she had been guilty of some great sin. And as I know that, now that she is in heaven, it is lawful for me to reveal such things as redound to her praise, though they were heretofore secret, I have determined to insert here what passed between her and me on this subject. For she frequently made a general[22] confession to me, and always when she came to this point, she bitterly accused herself with sobs and tears. So that although I knew that it is the peculiarity of virtuous souls to believe that sin exists where in truth it does not,"—(observe the morality and think a little of the practical and psychological consequences of it)—"and to deem it great, where it is in fact small, nevertheless, since Catherine accused herself as meriting eternal punishment for the above fault, I was obliged to ask her, whether in acting as she had done, she had at all proposed or wished to violate her vow of chastity? To which she replied, that no such thought had ever entered her heart. I again asked her, whether, since she had no intention of transgressing her vow of virginity, she had done this in order to please any man in particular, or all men in general? And she answered that nothing gave her so much pain, as to see men, or be seen by them, or to be where any of them were. So that whenever any of her father's workmen, who lived in the house with him, came into any place where she chanced to be, she used to run from them, as if they had been serpents, so that all wondered at her." (Note the general state of manners and individual state of mind indicated by the fact, that such conduct should be deemed a praiseworthy proof of maidenly purity!) "She never," she said, "placed herself at the window, or at the door of the house to look at those who passed."—(Surely the Saint forgot her pious habit of looking