n instant, she
burst into tears, her sufferings increased tenfold, and she seemed
unable to exist unless she immediately gained pardon in the sacrament
of penance.

She had also to combat a feeling of aversion to a certain person
whom she had not seen for years. She was in despair because this
person, with whom nevertheless she declared she had nothing in common,
was always before her eyes in the most evil dispositions, and she wept
bitterly, and with much anxiety of conscience, saying that she would
not commit sin, that her grief must be evident to all, and other things
which were quite unintelligible to the persons listening to her. Her
illness continued to increase, and she was thought to be on the point
of death. At this moment one of her friends saw her, to his great
surprise, suddenly raise herself up on her bed, and say:

'Repeat with me the prayers for those in their last agony.' He did as
requested, and she answered the Litany in a firm voice. After some
little time, the bell for the agonising was heard, and a person came in
to ask Anne Catherine's prayers for his sister, who was just dead. Anne
Catherine asked for details concerning her illness and death, as if
deeply interested in the subject, and the friend above-mentioned heard
the account given by the new comer of a consumption resembling in the
minutest particulars the illness of Anne Catherine herself. The
deceased woman had at first been in so much pain and so disturbed in
mind that she had seemed quite unable to prepare herself for death; but
during the last fortnight she had been better, had made her peace with
God, having in the first place been reconciled to a person with whom
she was at enmity, and had died in peace, fortified by the last
sacraments, and attended by her former enemy. Anne Catherine gave a
small sum of money for the burial and funeral-service of this person.
Her sweatings, cough, and fever now left her, and she resembled a
person exhausted with fatigue, whose linen has been changed, and who
has been placed on a fresh bed. Her friend said to her, 'When this
fearful illness came upon you, this woman grew better, and her hatred
for another was the only obstacle to her making peace with God. You
took upon yourself, for the time, her feelings of hatred, she died in
good dispositions, and now you seem tolerably well again. Are you still
suffering on her account?' 'No, indeed!' she replied; 'that would be most
unreasonable; but how can a