and sisters in the room that is converted into a chapel. At eleven o’clock I raised the pillows, and began reading, at the request of Ellen, a sermon upon death. After the first few lines she stopped me with a look; Karl was pale again. The dear, dying one asked us to sing. Kate, we were so _electrified_ by Ellen’s calmness that we obeyed! She tried to join her voice to ours. The priest came; the Mass began. Ellen, radiant, followed every word. We all communicated with her. After the Mass she kissed us all, keeping Karl’s head long between her hands――her poor little alabaster hands; then, at her request, René sang the _Adeste_: “_Sic nos amantem, quis non redamaret?_” At this last word Ellen kissed the crucifix for the last time and fled away into the bosom of God. The priest had made the recommendation of the soul a little before. Oh! those words, “Go forth, Christian soul!” _Excelsior!_ Let us love each other, dear Kate. DECEMBER 29. “In Rama was a voice heard, weeping and lamentation: Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.” Poor mothers of Bethlehem, what must you not have suffered! But you, ye “flowers of martyrdom,” as the church salutes you――you who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth――how happy were you to die for him who had come to die for you! Dear sister, we followed her to the church, and then Karl and René set out, taking this coffin with them to Ireland. The family have wished it thus. This sorrowful journey has a double object: Karl is going to settle his affairs, and in two months at most he will enter the _Séminaire des Missions Etrangères_, the preparatory college of the foreign missions. He will see you at that time. He was sublime. God has been with us, and the soul of Ellen shone upon these recent scenes. My mother would not consent to my going also. I was weaker than I thought. On returning to the _chalet_ I was obliged to go to bed. What an inconvenience I should have been to the dear travellers! But how sad it is to end a year, a first year of marriage, without René! This beautiful sky, this luxuriant nature, all the poetry of the south, which I love so much――all this appears to me still more beautiful since that holy death. Why were you not with us? There are inexpressible things. I have understood something of what heaven is. Sweet Ellen! What peace was in her death, what suavity in her words! I did not leave her after her death, but remained near her bed, where I had so much admired her. I tried to warm her hand, to recall her glance, her smile, until the appearance of the gloomy coffin. O my God! how must Karl have suffered. Those hammer-strokes resounded in my heart! Dear, she is with God; she is happy. Sweet is it thus to die with Jesus in the soul. It is Paradise begun. I embrace you a hundred times, my Kate. We had some earth from Ireland, and some moss from Gartan, to adorn Ellen’s coffin. O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?