CHAPTER V. THE MOTHER OF THE INCARNATION A VICTIM FOR HER SON AND HER NIECE.-- CONVERSION OF BOTH.--MOTHER ST. ATHANASIUS ELECTED MOTHER SUPERIOR. The mental sufferings of the Mother of the Incarnation had abated at the end of three years, but they were very far from having wholly ceased. They were to be traced in part, as we have seen, to that heroic act of self-immolation by which she had offered herself as a victim to Divine justice for the salvation of two erring souls very dear to her heart, and until grace should have fully triumphed over both, her martyrdom was not to terminate. These objects of her holy solicitude were her son, and one of her nieces. The former, as may be remembered, had applied for admission to the Jesuit novitiate, much about the time of the Venerable Mother's departure for Canada, and not being considered suitable for the Order, had been rejected. The disappointment preyed on him for a while, but hope soon succeeded to despondency. If the cloister was closed, the world, he argued, was open to him. Why not then seek in the latter, the happiness which he had vainly dreamed of finding in the former? Why not choose one among the many paths to distinction which untried life held out so temptingly, and take his chance of success as others had done before him? Lured onwards by ambition, he resolved to settle in Paris, naturally supposing that the Queen's well-known veneration for his saintly Mother, would secure him her favour. The Duchess d'Aiguillon at once offered him her patronage, and the difficulties of the first start being thus happily removed, he seemed free to select his road to fortune. And was he then really destined for nothing better than the slavery of the world? Could it be true that that worthless world was one day to boast of having thrown its shackles round the heart of the son of Marie Guyart? She had consecrated his soul to God before his eyes had opened to the light; she had taught him his first prayer; she had given him his first impression of piety; she had instilled his first lesson, that it were better far to die a thousand deaths if that were possible, than live to commit one mortal sin. Had the remembrance of her teaching utterly vanished, and the last trace of her maternal influence quite faded away? No, that could not be. The mother, who like her, has rightly understood the words maternal influence, and early taken care to establish her own, will hold the key to her child's heart while ever his heart throbs. Vast intervals may separate that mother and child; oceans and years may lie between them, and still the mother's words will retain their grasp of her boy's soul, starting from its depths in the hour of temptation, to awaken the sweet echo of early lessons, and revive the memory of that last promise at parting, to be true to God, to conscience and the maternal teaching.