Her insatiable desire of crosses and humiliations was not satisfied even with the ingratitude of her brother and sister, nor with the insolent behaviour of the domestics; she sought for new sufferings, and among others, contrived to burn herself while employed in cooking. She attended the servants in sickness, reserving the whole care of them to herself, and voluntarily rendering them the lowest services. Among other instances of the kind, she at one time dressed the infected wound of a workman whose foot had been nearly severed in two by a terrible accident, and whose deplorable condition rendered him absolutely unapproachable to all but herself. Although gangrene threatened, and amputation seemed inevitable, she persevered in her work of mercy and self-denial, until she bad effected a cure. Her brother and sister, she looked on as her best benefactors, accepting their unkindness as the greatest of favours, and obeying their directions with scrupulous exactitude, and this life she led, and this death to self she practised, not for a week, or a month, but for three or four successive years. Oh! how richly traced in heaven's own colouring, must have been the daily record of those years kept by her faithful guardian spirit! How mighty the change wrought in her spiritual condition, as one after another they passed away, each leaving behind an accumulation of grace made fruitful; each marked by new, and always more wondrous supernatural favours! It is not, however, by her supernatural favours that we are to estimate her sanctity, but by her practice of solid virtue, nor are we to forget that if by an exceptional vocation, she was led into the higher paths of the mystic life, she walked long, steadily and to the end in the common road, to which, as Christians, we are called no less than she was. Nevertheless, that singular favours should have been granted her, is exactly what we should have been, led to expect from our acquaintance with the history of the saints, which has taught us that it is ever God's way to be liberal with His creatures, in proportion as they are liberal with him. There had been no rapine in the holocaust of this, His faithful servant. She had never refused Him one gift He craved; withheld one sacrifice He asked; was He to be outdone in generosity? Oh, far from it! In presence of the magnificence of His gifts to her chosen soul, we have but to bow down as we bend before the sun when its ray dazzles us. The reverential wonder which they inspire, is, after all, but a homage to the great Giver, and if while we admire and venerate her exceptional privileges, we at the same time study and try to copy the imitable portions of her example, we shall reap profit from both passages of her life. CHAPTER V. PREPARATION FOR A HIGHER DEGREE OF DIVINE. UNION.--ACTIVE LIFE.--INTERIOR TRIALS.