The same year, according to the example of St. Teresa, she made a vow allowable only under very exceptional circumstances, to do, say, and think in all things whatever she considered most perfect, and most conducive to the glory of God, and so naturalized had she become by long habit to the practice of every virtue, that this vow never caused her an uneasiness. "Although I am but a poor sinful creature," she said, "God assists me to avoid every voluntary imperfection inconsistent with my promise. If involuntary faults mingle with the observance of it, I trust in His goodness to forgive them." She had at this time acquired that high degree of the habit of virtue, in which its acts are performed not only without pain, but with pleasure. The first novice professed in Quebec was Charlotte Barré of St. Ignatius, the former companion of Madame de la Peltrie. She made her solemn vows on the 21st of November, 1648, and a few days after, her example was followed by Sister Catherine of St. Ursula, the first Canadian lay sister. Henceforth the little community continued gradually but steadily to increase in numbers. From the first opening of the schools, the advantages of education had been extended to the French as well as to the Indians. Even in the small tenement which had served as a temporary convent, there were two French boarders; at the period now under consideration the number had increased to eighteen or twenty. That of the seminarists had amounted to eighty. The year 1649 at which we have arrived, brings us to a tear-stained page in the annals of the infant Church of Canada. By a reference to the introductory chapter, it will be seen that this was the date of the massacre of the concerted Hurons and their saintly pastors, by the savage Iroquois. The sad event afflicted every heart in the colony, but perhaps most of all, the hearts of the Venerable Mother and of the Mother St. Joseph. The survivors, who numbered only four or five hundred, took refuge in Quebec, where they were received with extreme kindness. Some were located on a portion of the Isle of Orleans belonging to the Ursulines, and generously transferred by them to the unhappy fugitives. To relieve their distress, the religious deprived themselves of a good part of the food and clothing which they could very badly spare. The Mother of the Incarnation admitted many of their daughters into the seminary, and undertook, though in her fiftieth year, to learn the Huron tongue, that she might be enabled to impart the blessing of spiritual instruction to the exiles. Her teacher was Father Bressani, who had almost miraculously escaped from the hands of the Iroquois, after having undergone the ordinary course of torture prescribed by savage cruelty. She and the Mother St. Joseph divided the charge of teaching these new pupils, who besides ample instruction, received also generous alms. It was at this time that bread was first seen to multiply in the hands of