traces of the spirit of self-sacrifice, the patience and
resignation of her whole life; she looked as though she had died for
the love of Jesus, in the very act of performing some work of charity
for others. Her right hand was resting on the counterpane--that hand on
which God had bestowed the unparalleled favour of being able at once to
recognise by the touch anything that was holy, or that had been
consecrated by the Church--a favour which perhaps no one had ever before
enjoyed to so great an extent--a favour by which the interests of
religion might be inconceivably promoted, provided it was made use of
with discretion, and which surely had not been bestowed upon a poor
ignorant peasant girl merely for her own personal gratification. For
the last time I took in mine the hand marked with a sign so worthy of
our utmost veneration, the hand which was as a spiritual instrument in
the instant recognition of whatever was holy, that it might be honoured
even in a grain of sand--the charitable industrious hand, which had so
often fed the hungry and clothed the naked--this hand was now cold and
lifeless. A great favour had been withdrawn from earth, God had taken
from us the hand of his spouse, who had rendered testimony to, prayed,
and suffered for the truth. It appeared as though it had not been
without meaning, that she had resignedly laid down upon her bed the
hand which was the outward expression of a particular privilege granted
by Divine grace. Fearful of having the strong impression made upon me
by the sight of her countenance diminished by the necessary but
disturbing preparations which were being made around her bed, I
thoughtfully left her room. If, I said to myself--if, like so many holy
solitaries, she had died alone in a grave prepared by her own hands,
her friends--the birds--would have covered her with flowers and leaves; if,
like other religious, she had died among virgins consecrated to God,
and that their tender care and respectful veneration had followed her
to the grave, as was the case, for example, with St. Colomba of Rieti,
it would have been edifying and pleasing to those who loved her; but
doubtless such honours rendered to her lifeless remains would not have
been conformable to her love for Jesus, whom she so much desired to
resemble in death as in life.'

The same friend later wrote as follows: 'Unfortunately there was no
official post-mortem examination of her body, and none of those
inquiries by w