When Rita found herself within the sacred enclosure where she had so ardently desired to be, her glorious escort disappeared in a moment from sight, and she was abandoned and left all alone in the darkness, and had to pass the remainder of the night in an ecstasy of wonder, but tossed about on a sea of uncertainty by the rush of the thoughts that filled her mind. The nuns rose in the early morning to sing the praises of the Lord, and what was their surprise when they saw within their convent, and trembling with fright, the humble widow whom they had repeatedly rejected! They plied her with questions, and Rita replied simply and modestly by describing the whole history of the miraculous occurrence of the night. For the last time she begged them with the greatest fervour not to reject her any longer--and how could they refuse her in the face of so evident a miracle? The nuns, therefore, with common consent and unusual applause, received the holy widow into their number, and after joining with her in thanking and praising the Most High, they put on her their penitential habit, and admitted her to the novitiate with all solemnity and every mark of general satisfaction. The nuns were delighted at the turn of events, and Rita's joy exceeded all bounds, till, comparing her unworthiness with the great goodness of God, she was abashed before Him. The more she thought on the greatness of the remarkable favours conferred on her, the more profound did her humility become, and she poured forth a thousand times her tribute of gratitude to heaven, but could never find words or thoughts able to express the thanks she owed to Divine Providence. This miraculous entry into the convent occurred during the unhappy years we have before described, or about the year 1413, when Rita was nearly thirty-two years of age; for she was married in her thirteenth year, and lived eighteen years with her husband, and was a widow for about a year, when her second son died; whilst the interval between that event and her entry to the convent, the period of her repeated rejections, must have been short. In the same year the Augustinian Order could boast of another splendid addition to its members, for the reception of Alexander Oliva, called the Blessed, occurred then. He afterwards reached the highest honours within the Order, and was raised to the dignity of Cardinal before he passed to the glory he had prepared for himself in heaven. But the Order has greater reason to be proud of Rita's reception, because, although her life was passed in obscurity and far from the eyes of the world, it certainly was not less bright with the splendour of the Saints, and after death she has acquired more of the veneration of the faithful. CHAPTER II RITA AS NOVICE: HER PROFESSION