I was much afflicted at seeing her ill, and I often exclaimed:
"Life is so dreary!" "Life is not dreary"--she would immediately
say; "on the contrary, it is most gay. Now if you said: 'Exile is
dreary,' I could understand. It is a mistake to call 'life' that
which must have an end. Such a word should be only used of the
joys of Heaven--joys that are unfading--and in this true meaning
life is not sad but gay--most gay. . . ."

Her own gaiety was a thing of delight. For several days she had
been much better, and we were saying to her: "We do not yet know
of what disease you will die. . . ." "But," she answered, "I shall
die of death! Did not God tell Adam of what he would die when He
said to him: 'Thou shalt die of death'?"[24]

"Then death will come to fetch you?"--"No, not death, but the Good
God. Death is not, as pictures tell us, a phantom, a horrid
spectre. The Catechism says that it is the separation of soul and
body--no more! Well, I do not fear a separation which will unite
me for ever to God."

"Will the _Divine Thief,"_ some one asked, "soon come to steal His
little bunch of grapes?" "I see Him in the distance, and I take
good care not to cry out: 'Stop thief!' Rather, I call to Him:
'This way, this way!'"

* * * * * *

Asked under what name we should pray to her in Heaven, she
answered humbly: "Call me _Little Thérèse."_