A mayo woman once said to me, "I knew a servant girl who hung herself
for the love of God. She was lonely for the priest and her
society,[FN#5] and hung herself to the banisters with a scarf. She was
no sooner dead than she became white as a lily, and if it had been
murder or suicide she would have become black as black. They gave her
Christian burial, and the priest said she was no sooner dead than she
was with the Lord. So nothing matters that you do for the love of God."
I do not wonder at the pleasure she has in telling this story, for she
herself loves all holy things with an ardour that brings them quickly
to her lips. She told me once that she never hears anything described
in a sermon that she does not afterwards see with her eyes. She has
described to me the gates of Purgatory as they showed themselves to her
eyes, but I remember nothing of the description except that she could
not see the souls in trouble but only the gates. Her mind continually
dwells on what is pleasant and beautiful. One day she asked me what
month and what flower were the most beautiful. When I answered that I
did not know, she said, "the month of May, because of the Virgin, and
the lily of the valley, because it never sinned, but came pure out of
the rocks," and then she asked, "what is the cause of the three cold
months of winter?" I did not know even that, and so she said, "the sin
of man and the vengeance of God." Christ Himself was not only blessed,
but perfect in all manly proportions in her eyes, so much do beauty and
holiness go together in her thoughts. He alone of all men was exactly
six feet high, all others are a little more or a little less.


[FN#5] The religious society she had belonged to.