herself as a passive instrument to His designs, His Almighty Providence was employed in preparing for her a co-operatrix endowed at once with the zeal and the wealth, each indispensable in its way,--Madame de la Peltrie, to whom the next chapter will introduce us. CHAPTER V. MADAME DE LA PELTRIE, FOUNDRESS OF THE URSULINES IN CANADA. Marie Madeleine de Chauvigny, better known as Madame de la Peltrie, was born in 1603, at Alençon, a town in Normandy. Through both her parents she claimed connection with the noblest families of the province, and from both also she derived a far more precious inheritance than exalted birth, the imperishable heritage of piety. The virtues which reflected so bright a lustre on her name, both in her own land and in the New World, were, under God, the fruit of their teaching; but it must be owned that her natural docility and amiability of disposition rendered her early training an easy task. Compassion for the poor seemed so identified with her nature, that she could not see a want without trying, according to her opportunity, to relieve it, and when the power to do this failed, she endeavoured to make up for the disappointment by an ever-ready and most tender sympathy. She seemed to have no taste for the toys and sports of children, preferring for her recreation the exercises of devotion, which she had learned by observing them in others. In admiration of her early piety, her parents loved to fancy that heaven must surely have some singularly blessed destiny in store for her.