on making reparation to Him whom I had offended, to notice that I might easily have been overheard by a lady who had entered the church in the meantime. When I had finished, the Father gently told me to return the next day to his confessional, and I left without observing at the moment that I had not received absolution. This omission was supplied at my renewed confession next morning. During the first year that I remained under the direction of this Father, I confined myself entirely to the accusation of my sins, thinking that nothing else should be introduced at confession, but having heard a pious girl say that it was not right to practise corporal austerities without permission from the confessor, I applied for it to mine, and he then regulated the amount of these, as well as the number of my confessions and communions. I returned home, changed into another creature, and that so completely, that I no longer recognised myself. I discovered with unmistakable clearness the ignorance under cover of which I had hitherto thought myself very innocent, my conduct very harmless, and my whole spiritual condition blameless. After our Lord had opened my eyes, I saw myself as I was, and I had to own that my justice was but iniquity." She always looked on this heavenly favour as one of the greatest she had ever received, and its date as synonymous with that of her perfect conversion to God. "It would be difficult," says her son, "to lead a more exemplary life than hers had been; by the word conversion, we are not then to understand, a transition from a state of sin to a state of grace, but a resolute determination to bid adieu wholly to the world, that she might give herself all to God and live only by His love." To mark her entire separation from the world, she assumed a peculiarly grave style of dress, dismissed her servants, gave up her house, and returned to her father's, where free from all care arid responsibility, she found herself as she desired, alone with God alone. She chose an apartment in the upper story as the most retired, and between this and the adjoining oratory, she passed most of her time in prayer. She was never to be seen except at church or at home; paid no visits and received very few; spoke but rarely, and then concisely. She took her frugal meals at her father's table, then retired to her solitude, as she says herself, "like the dove to its nest." It was at this time, that in addition to her other most severe austerities, she gave up the use of linen, substituting serge. Knowing the danger of inaction, she occupied the intervals between prayer in embroidery, choosing this employment because it left the mind free to converse with her Lord. But although her life was thus hidden in God, it was no part of her piety to forget the interests of her neighbour. In her present straitened circumstances, she could no longer open her hand in alms as had been her wont in better days, but the sick poor retained