d appear extraordinary.

Besides, the vanity I had, furnished me with pretexts which appeared
to me the justest possible. Oh, if confessors knew the injury they
cause women by these soft complaisances, and the evil it produces,
they would show a greater severity; for if I had found a single
confessor who had told me there was harm in being as I was, I would
not have continued in it a single moment; but my vanity taking the
part of the confessors, made me think they were right and my
troubles were fanciful.

That maid of whom I spoke became every day more arrogant, and as the
Devil stirred her up to torment me, when she saw that her outcries
did not annoy me, she thought if she could hinder me from
communicating she would cause me the greatest of all annoyances. She
was quite right, O Divine Spouse of pure souls, since the only
satisfaction of my life was to receive you and to honor you. I
suffered a species of languor when I was some days without receiving
you. When I was unable, I contented myself with keeping some hours
near you, and, in order to have liberty for it, I applied myself to
perpetual adoration.

This maid knew my affection for the Holy Sacrament, before which,
when I could freely, I passed many hours on my knees.

She took care to watch every day she thought I communicated. She
came to tell my mother-in-law and my husband, who wanted nothing
more to get into a rage with me. There were reprimands which
continued the whole day.

If any word of justification escaped me, or any vexation at what
they said to me, it was ground enough for their saying that I
committed sacrilege, and crying out against devotion.

If I answered nothing, that increased their bitterness. They said
the most stinging things possible to me. If I fell ill, which
happened often enough, they took the opportunity to come and wrangle
with me in my bed, saying it was my communions and my prayers made
me ill--as if to receive you, O true Source of all good, could cause
any ill!

As it was with difficulty I ordinarily had any time for praying, in
order not to disobey my husband, who was unwilling I should rise
from bed before seven o'clock, I bethought me I had only to kneel
upon my bed.

I could not go to mass without the permission of my husband, for we
were very distant from a