The touching ceremony of Extreme Unction made a deep impression on me.  I can still see the place where I knelt, and hear my poor Father’s sobs.

My dear Mother died on August 28, 1877, in her forty-sixth year.  The day after her death my Father took me in his arms and said:  “Come and kiss your dear Mother for the last time.”  Without saying a word I put my lips to her icy forehead.  I do not remember having cried much, and I did not talk to anyone of all that filled my heart; I looked and listened in silence, and I saw many things they would have hidden from me.  Once I found myself close to the coffin in the passage.  I stood looking at it for a long time; I had never seen one before, but I knew what it was.  I was so small that I had to lift up my head to see its whole length, and it seemed to me very big and very sad.

Fifteen years later I was again standing by another coffin, that of our holy Mother Genevieve,[1] and I was carried back to the days of my childhood.  Memories crowded upon me; it was the same little Therese who looked at it, but she had grown, and the coffin seemed small.  She had not to lift up her head to it, now she only raised her eyes to contemplate Heaven which seemed to her very full of joy, for trials had matured and strengthened her soul, so that nothing on earth could make her grieve.

Our Lord did not leave me wholly an orphan; on the day of my Mother’s funeral He gave me another mother, and allowed me to choose her freely.  We were all five together, looking at one another sadly, when our nurse, overcome with emotion, said, turning to Celine and to me:  “Poor little dears, you no longer have a Mother.”  Then Celine threw herself into Marie’s arms, crying:  “Well, you will be my Mother now.”  I was so accustomed to imitate Celine that I should undoubtedly have followed her example, but I feared Pauline would be sad and feel herself left out if she too had not a little daughter.  So, with a loving look, I hid my face on her breast saying in my turn:  “And Pauline will be my Mother.”

That day, as I have said, began the second period of my life.  It was the most sorrowful of all, especially after Pauline, my second Mother, entered the Carmel; and it lasted from the time I was four years old until I was fourteen, when I recovered much of my childish gaiety, even though I understood more fully the serious side of life.

I must tell you that after my Mother’s death my naturally happy disposition completely changed.  Instead of being lively and demonstrative as I had been, I became timid, shy, and extremely sensitive; a look was enough to make me burst into tears.  I could not bear to be noticed or to meet strangers, and was only at ease in my own family circle.  There I was always cherished with the most loving care; my Father’s affectionate heart seemed endowed with a mother’s love, and my sisters were no less tender and devoted.  If Our Lord had not lavished so much love and sunshine on His Little Flower, she never could have become acclimatised to this earth.  Still too weak to bear the storm, she needed warmth, refreshing dew, and soft breezes, and these gifts were never wanting to her, even in the chilling seasons of trials.