Let us hope that the frivolous Monna Colomba listened to Catherine's gentle but very explicit exhortations and turned away from her levities. If she had a sense of humour--and it is a not uncommon possession of light-minded elderly widows--she must have been lovingly entertained at the pale virgin's identification of herself with those who "walk in the way of luxuries and pleasures," and "set themselves up as an example of sin and vanity." But Catherine's use of the first person in this connection, strained though it may appear, is more than a figure of speech, to soften the severity of her rebuke. We learn from the legend that till the end of her life she never ceased to repent, bitterly and with tears, for having at the age of twelve allowed an older sister to dress her prettily, and blanch her hair after the fashion of the day. The reason for this terrible lapse, as she told her confessor, was simply a delight in beautiful things--but she always looked back on it with horror. The application of the finding of Christ in the Temple, in this letter, is curious, but not devoid of grace. In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary: To you, dearest sister and daughter in Christ sweet Jesus: I Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, write in His precious Blood, with desire that I might see you a fruitful field, receiving the seed of the Word of God, and bringing forth fruit for yourself and others. I want to see you, who are now getting to be an old woman, and who are free from worldly ties, a mirror of virtue to younger women, who are still bound to the world by the tie of their husbands.