Fidelity to her calling had been the watchword of her existence, and now that her time of merit had nearly run, no close observer could fail to see that this undeviating fidelity had produced rich fruits. To analyse her character as a religious, would be simply to attribute to her every virtue which, belongs to a perfect one. Our Lord once showed her her soul under the figure of a very beautiful and strongly-fortified castle, and He warned her to watch cautiously over its external approaches, promising that He would guard the interior of the edifice. In compliance with this direction, she resolved to surround the mystic castle with the deep trenches of humility, and so well did she succeed, that unfeigned contempt of self breathed at last in every act and thought of her life, inspiring a love and desire of humiliation which secured for those who tried her, the warmest gratitude of her heart, and the most devoted of her services. Not satisfied with mediocrity in any virtue, she carried mortification to an absorbing love of the cross; charity, to the sacrifice of every natural feeling; obedience, to child-like submission, spiritualized by faith; reverence for the rule, to most minute observance of its least prescription. She also attained an eminent degree of prayer and union with God.
For more than four years before her happy death, she had to endure the two-fold martyrdom of anguish of soul and great physical suffering. Yet while the wearing fever of prolonged consumption slowly undermined her life, so wonderfully did her great courage sustain her, that she seldom kept her bed, or relinquished her work. If sometimes compelled to yield to exhaustion and pain, she received the attention of her Sisters with so much humility and gratitude, that all felt it a happiness to render her any service. Far from complaining, she was confused when others showed compassion for her, and in return for their offers of kind offices, was always ready to remark that they themselves required indulgence more than she did. She learned at last to rejoice in the sufferings which she looked on as precious pledges of the love of her Divine Spouse, and that she should lose no part of her treasure, she desired to suffer without consolation or relief, indemnifying herself by practices of voluntary mortification for the occasional alleviations forced on her by charity. Towards the end, dropsy was added to her complicated maladies, and so, for the last two months, she was compelled to yield to the claims of utterly worn-out nature. Let us visit her in the humble lodging where those two closing months of life were passed, and we shall feel constrained to own, that the scene before us is one very grand and beautiful in the eyes of faith, whatever may be its aspect in those of the world.