I think, in this: that the conversation I shared in was with one
who, I thought, would do well in the estate of matrimony; [4] and
I was told by my confessors, and others also, whom in many points
I consulted, used to say, that I was not offending God. One of
the nuns [5] slept with us who were seculars, and through her it
pleased our Lord to give me light, as I shall now explain.


1. The Saint throughout her life was extremely careful of
cleanliness. In one of her letters to Father Jerome Gratian of
the Mother of God (No. 323, Letter 28, vol. iii. ed. Doblado),
she begs him, for the love of God, to see that the Fathers had
clean cells and table; and the Ven. Mother Anne of
St. Bartholomew, in her life (Bruxelles, 1708, p. 40), says that
she changed the Saint's linen on the day of her death, and was
thanked by her for her carefulness. "Her soul was so pure," says
the Ven. Mother, "that she could not bear anything that was
not clean."

2. Maria de Cepeda, half-sister of the Saint. She was married to
Don Martin de Guzman y Barrientos; and the contract for the dowry
was signed January 11, 1531 (Reforma de los Descalcos
lib. i. ch. vii. section 4).

3. The Augustinian Monastery of Our Lady of Grace. It was
founded in 1509 by the venerable Fra Juan of Seville,
Vicar-General of the Order (Reforma de los Descalcos
lib. i. ch. vii. n. 2). There were forty nuns in the house at
this time (De la Fuente).