had caused me. She
was a little astonished, but her heart was too hard to be gained.

I often acted thus because she frequently gave me opportunities. She
had a singular dexterity in attending the sick. My husband, ailing
almost continually, would suffer no other person to administer to him.
He had a very great regard for her. She was artful; in his presence she
affected an extraordinary respect for me. When he was not present, if I
said a word to her, though with the greatest mildness and if she heard
him coming, she cried out with all her might that she was unhappy. She
acted like one distressed so that, without informing himself of the
truth, he was irritated against me, as was also my mother-in-law.

The violence I did to my proud and hasty nature was so great, that I
could hold out no longer. I was quite spent with it. It seemed
sometimes as if I was inwardly rent, and I have often fallen sick with
the struggle. She did not forbear exclaiming against me, even before
persons of distinction, who came to see me. If I was silent, she took
offence at that yet more, and said that I despised her. She cried me
down, and made complaints to everybody. All this redounded to my honor
and her own disgrace. My reputation was so well established, on account
of my exterior modesty, my devotion, and the great acts of charity
which I did, that nothing could shake it.

Sometimes she ran out into the street, crying out against me. At one
time she exclaimed, "Am not I very unhappy to have such a mistress?"
People gathered about her to know what I had done to her; and not
knowing what to say, she answered that I had not spoken to her all the
day. They returned, laughing, and said, "She has done you no great harm
then."

I am surprised at the blindness of confessors, and at their permitting
their penitents to conceal so much of the truth from them. The
confessor of this girl made her pass for a saint. This he said in my
hearing. I answered nothing; for love would not permit me to speak of
my troubles. I should consecrate them all to God by a profound silence.

My husband was out of humor with my devotion. "What," said he, "you
love God so much, that you love me no longer." So little did he
comprehend that the true conjugal love is that which the Lord Himself
forms in the heart that loves Him.

Oh, Thou who art pure and holy, Thou didst imprint in me from the first
such a love of chastity, that there was nothing in the world which I