in twenty-two
pupils. As the nuns could not afford to keep a servant, they themselves
had to cultivate the garden which, when they arrived, was a wilderness
of weeds and briars. They also had to care for their cow and milk it, to
chop wood for their fires, to bake their bread, to do the cooking and
washing, besides teaching the two schools. For their supply of water,
they were compelled to depend upon the muddy current of the Missouri
River, brought to them in small bucketfuls, for which they had to pay an
exorbitant price. The summer was very hot, and the cold of winter was so
intense, that the clothes, hung up to dry near the kitchen stove, froze
stiff. They had to be careful in handling the tin plates, etc., which
served for their meals, lest their hands should adhere to them. The
white fingers of Mesdames Aude and Berthold soon became hard and grimy.
As for Mother Duchesne her hands had become rugged and horny long ago,
from the hard, rough work to which she had devoted herself, especially
after her reentrance into Sainte Marie d'en Haut. Indeed, it had always
been her custom to reserve to herself, as much as possible, every kind
of work that might be most painful or fatiguing for others. These
particulars offer but a faint idea of the sufferings and privations
endured by these refined and accomplished ladies, during those hard
beginnings of the Society of the Sacred Heart in the New World.

During this trying time, Mother Duchesne's desolation of heart was
extreme, and her sense of loneliness indescribable. Whatever labors and
austerities she had imposed upon herself hitherto, she had always had a
circle of friends of the choicest kind and spiritual directors with whom
she felt at her ease, but now all this was a thing of the past. Neither
did she find any consolation in prayer. Her soul seemed dead within her,
and yet, besides keeping up her own courage, she had to sustain that of
her young companions, less inured to suffering and without her granite
endurance. Still they were very brave and Bishop Dubourg could not but
admire the valiant spirit and the cheerfulness of all.

But the establishment at St. Charles was only a temporary arrangement to
last for one year; and, as the house that was building at Florissant was
not yet ready when the lease expired, Bishop Dubourg gave them the use
of his farm near that village during the interval of waiting, with the
log house upon it built by the consecrated hands of the