occupied my mind so that I could not sleep all night. At seven o’clock, when I saw that my sister was not up, I concluded that she was no longer sleeping, and feared that she might be ill. Accordingly, I went to her bed, where I found her still fast asleep. The noise I made awoke her; she asked me what o’clock it was. I told her; and having inquired how she was, and if she had slept well, she said she was very well, and that she had slept excellently. So she rose, dressed, and went away, doing this, as everything else, with a tranquillity and equanimity inconceivable. We said no adieu for fear of breaking down. I only turned aside when I saw her ready to go. In this manner she quitted the world on the 4th January 1652, being then exactly twenty-six years and three months old.” {58} Our readers will not grudge this extract, so touching in its simplicity. What a living picture does it give us of this remarkable family!—the elder sister’s wakeful anxiety—the younger’s calm determination—the brother’s half-suppressed yet deeply-moved tenderness—the proud and sensitive reserve of all the three. Jacqueline’s firmness was heroic, but her heart was full of concern. She had escaped the half-authoritative, half-supplicating entreaties of her brother, and found refuge for her long-cherished solicitudes of heart in the bosom of Port Royal, and the strong counsels both of the Mère Angélique and the Mère Agnès. But after a while this did not satisfy her. When the time came to make her profession, she was anxious to do so, not merely with her own consent, but with her brother’s. And accordingly, she addressed him in the following March a remarkable letter, in which, while reminding him that she was her own mistress to do as she wished in a matter so seriously affecting her life, she yet prayed him to give her a kindly greeting in her solemn act, and to come to the ceremony of her taking the vows. The letter breathes at once the affection of a sister and the passion of a saint,—the proud firmness so characteristic of the family, with a charming sweetness, blending entreaty with command. She signs herself already “Sister of Sainte Euphémie,” the name which she adopted as an inmate of Port Royal, addressing her brother for the most part with the grave formal “you,” but now and then relapsing into the old familiar “thou,” as if she were still in the family home.