A cousin of Amélie’s died the day before yesterday, after two years of marriage. See how short a time human felicity lasts! Every terrestrial happiness reunited on this charming head for so short a time! Her poor mother had buried all her other treasures one by one, and concentrated her affections and her hopes on this idolized daughter, the only one spared to her, and who was to be stricken down after two years of so happy a union! Were these two souls truly religious? I know not. Ah! who will comfort the mother, if God is not her comforter? Alas! these rapid destinies, these human fragilities, these futures broken, these deaths, this mourning—will they not open the eyes of those who persist in not seeing? Amélie is always breathlessly eager to attain her object, and distressed at the hindrances which hold her back. How pitiful that difficulties so contemptible and vulgar should be raised in order to turn aside the flight of this poor soul from the heavenly Bridegroom! I can only conceive a mother with an absolute devotion, a complete self-forgetfulness, a perpetual _sursum corda_. But these miserable obstacles, these calculated delays, to enchain this dear Amélie in spite of her tears and ardent longings—how they make me suffer! It appears that for three years she has been soliciting her mother’s consent. My God, where are the hearts which see but thee in all things? Mme. de Vals[35] is overwhelmed by this catastrophe. All the family is in a state that breaks one’s heart. Oh! if these distressing scenes had only shown Mme. de Vals the vanity of earthly illusions; if she had only understood that we must cling to God above all! Footnote 35: The mother of the young wife who died. Kate, my sister in heaven, pray for this friend of your Georgina, and pray also for me, who cannot live without my sister! MAY 5. The month of flowers, the month of songs, the month of the ever-blessed Virgin, comes to me with bright memories. My own Ireland, mother, sister, where are you? What cowardice is mine! Brittany is smiling, rosy under a beautiful sun; the sea is calm and magnificent. I have just been leaning over my balcony and looking long at this grand spectacle: the blue sky, the green sea, in the grand and majestic silence of immensity. Was there not a Christian meaning in the words of the philosopher of antiquity who said: “God does all in silence”? How fine is this expression! Dear Kate, bless me! I go out, move about, wish to be useful; I work with Gertrude, with my mother, with René. But I drag heavily the cross of your absence. I complain to God without ceasing. Love makes everything sweet and light: I have, then, no love?