While we were very little he taught us reverence for what he called our vocation. From our earliest years we felt its importance. My sister Mélanie, who was oldest of all, my brothers Bernard and Stephen had early decided upon theirs--for Bernard the army, for the other two the mission field. Father never thought of opposing them, although perhaps these choices forced him to resign hopes that he had cherished. The laughing Louise would marry, there was no hurry about that. As for Nicola and James, they were still too little for much thought about their future. “And you?” my father had asked me. As I had no answer ready, he gave utterance to his desire. “You will remain with us.” Thus it was agreed that I was to remain, to take charge of the household. The part assigned to me hardly allured me; it seemed tame and commonplace, whereas the destinies of the others were adorned with all the glamour of leaving home. I neither confirmed nor opposed the plan proposed for my future, but within myself I felt a wild desire to be set free from these arrangements, from this power that dominated me. Secret longings to rebel even against those I loved began to germinate within me. Later they were destined to grow, under an influence at that time unforeseen. I ought now to tell about The Queen. Is it not her turn? Yet in truth I can not do it and you must not ask me to. That shadow which I always seek as I return to the house, and which our absence was always enough to disquiet--I can only invoke her presence there. It is indeed she, but remote and hidden. When I try to draw near her I can find no words. Have you observed, on fine summer days, the blue haze that floats over the hillsides and helps to bring out the delicate contours of the earth? If I could throw a transparent veil like that over my mother’s face, it seems to me that I should have more courage to tell of her sweetness, to describe the pureness of those eyes which could not believe in evil. What unknown strength was concealed beneath that sweetness? Grandfather, who could ward off any influence merely by his irritating little laugh, and who never laid aside this weapon of defence even with his son, invariably abandoned it before my mother. And my father, whose authority seemed to be absolute and infallible, would turn to her as if he recognised in her some mysterious power. I know now what that power was: it was God dwelling in her, whether she had been to meet him at early mass, before any one else was up and stirring, or whether she had offered to him her daily labours in the house....