e beautiful heavens, some
one said to her: "soon your home will be there, beyond the blue
sky. How lovingly you gaze at it!" She only smiled, but afterwards
she said to the Mother Prioress: "Dear Mother, the Sisters do not
realise my sufferings. Just now, when looking at the sky, I merely
admired the beauty of the material heaven--the true Heaven seems
more than ever closed against me. At first their words troubled
me, but an interior voice whispered: 'Yes, you were looking to
Heaven out of love. Since your soul is entirely delivered up to
love, all your actions, even the most indifferent, are marked with
this divine seal.' At once I was consoled."

In spite of the darkness which enveloped her, her Divine Saviour
sometimes left the door of her prison ajar. Those were moments in
which her soul lost itself in transports of confidence and love.
Thus it happened that on a certain day, when walking in the garden
supported by one of her own sisters, she stopped at the charming
spectacle of a hen sheltering its pretty little ones under its
wing. Her eyes filled with tears, and, turning to her companion,
she said: "I cannot remain here any longer, let us go in!" And
even when she reached her cell, her tears continued to fall, and
it was some time before she could speak. At last she looked at her
sister with a heavenly expression, and said: "I was thinking of
Our Lord, and the beautiful comparison He chose in order to make
us understand His ineffable tenderness. This is what He has done
for me all the days of my life. He has completely hidden me under
His Wing. I cannot express all that has just stirred my heart; it
is well for me that God conceals Himself, and lets me see the
effects of His Mercy but rarely, and as it were from 'behind the
lattices.' Were it not so I could never bear such sweetness."

. . . . . . .

Disconsolate at the prospect of losing their treasure, the
Community began a novena to Our Lady of Victories on June 5, 1897,
in the fervent hope that she would once again miraculously raise
the drooping Little Flower. But her answer was the same as that
given by the blessed Martyr, Theophane Venard, and they were
forced to accept with generosity the bitterness of the coming
separation.

At the beginning of July, her state became very serious, and she
was at last removed to the Infirmary. Seeing her empty cell, and
knowing she would never return to it, Mother Agnes of Jesus said
to her: "When you