I must confess to you, my Kate, that I envy Johanna, Berthe, and Lucy. They allow me to share largely in their maternal joys, but these treasures in which I take such pleasure, why are they not my own? I felt sad about it yesterday, and murmured to myself these lines of Brizeux: “Jours passés, que chacun rappelle avec des larmes, Jours qu’en vain on regrette, aviez vous tant des charmes? Ou les vents troublaient-ils aussi votre clarté, Et l’ennui du présent fait-il votre beauté”[23] René was behind me. “What, then, do you regret, my Georgina?” I told him all, and how gently and sweetly he comforted me――as you would, my Kate! Poor feeble reed that I am, I lean upon you. May the Blessed Virgin Mary protect us, dear sister! NOVEMBER 13. Eleven days between my two letters, my note-book tells me. Happily, René has taken my place, and you are aware in what occupations I have been absorbed, dear Kate. The poor are becoming quite a passion with me. I catechise them, I clothe them; it is so delightful to lavish one’s superabundance on the disinherited ones of this world! To-morrow we go to Nantes to take leave of our saintly friend Elizabeth, who will shortly depart for Louisiana. She has received permission to come and bid adieu to her mother――perhaps a lifelong adieu; for who can say whether she will return? I have had a letter from Ellen, giving me many details of her sojourn in the Highlands. The wound is still bleeding. The sight of a child makes her weep; and in her dreams she sees her son. May God support her!