How can I describe the anguish I suffered!  In a flash I saw life spread out before me as it really is, full of sufferings and frequent partings, and I shed bitter tears.  At that time I did not know the joy of sacrifice; I was weak—­so weak that I look on it as a great grace that I was able to bear such a trial, one seemingly so much beyond my strength—­and yet live.  I shall never forget how tenderly my little Mother consoled me, while explaining the religious life.  Then one evening, when I was thinking over the picture she had drawn, I felt that the Carmel was the desert where God wished me also to hide.  I felt this so strongly that I had not the least doubt about it; nor was it a childish dream, but the certainty of a Divine Call.  This impression, which I cannot properly describe, left me with a feeling of great inward peace.

Next day I confided my desires to Pauline.  They seemed to her as a proof of God’s Will, and she promised to take me soon to the Carmel, to see the Mother Prioress and to tell her my secret.  This solemn visit was fixed for a certain Sunday, and great was my embarrassment on hearing that my cousin Marie—­who was still young enough to be allowed to see the Carmelites—­was to come with us.[2]

I had to contrive a means of being alone with the Reverend Mother, and this is what I planned.  I told Marie, that, as we were to have the great privilege of seeing her, we must be very good and polite, and tell her our little secrets, and in order to do that, we must go out of the room in turns.  Though she did not quite like it, because she had no secrets to confide, Marie took me at my word, and so I was able to be alone with you, dear Mother.  You listened to my great disclosure, and believed in my vocation, but you told me that postulants were not received at the age of nine, and that I must wait till I was sixteen.  In spite of my ardent desire to enter with Pauline and make my First Communion on her clothing day, I had to be resigned.

At last the 2nd of October came—­a day of tears, but also of blessings, when Our Lord gathered the first of His flowers, the chosen flower who, later on, was to become the Mother of her sisters.[3] Whilst Papa, with my uncle and Marie, climbed the mountain of Carmel to offer his first sacrifice, my aunt took me to Mass, with my sisters and cousins.  We were bathed in tears, and people gazed at us in astonishment when we entered the church, but that did not stop our crying.  I even wondered how the sun could go on shining.  Perhaps, dear Mother, you think I exaggerate my grief a little.  I confess that this parting ought not to have upset me so much, but my soul was yet far from mature, and I had to pass through many trials before reaching the haven of peace, before tasting the delicious fruits of perfect love and of complete abandonment to God’s Will.