should run less risk; but Guiborata, convinced on the one hand that this would not save her, and on the other, anxious to give her life for Jesus Christ, thanked the abbot for his kindness, but resolved not to move from the spot which she believed heaven had destined for her. Believing that no place was secure or less exposed to the cruelty of the barbarians, neither did she yield to the entreaties of Riquilda's parents, who came in search of their daughter. The day of the invasion came; the barbarians entered the abbey, and sacked it, burning the convent, and murdering all the monks they found. Thirsting for blood, they spared not one life, nor respected a single village. What they did not destroy with the sword, they consumed with fire. In such a fearful slaughter it was hard for Guiborata's hut to escape; and so her turn came. Thither run the sacrilegious assassins; they examine the cell, and after stripping her of her clothes, they, in rage at not finding anything to satisfy their avarice, give her three blows of an axe on the head. She fell on her knees, and prayed for the persecuted Church and for her executioners. Guiborata sank to the ground, and slowly gave up her soul to her Creator. Her life, so full of good works, in spite of her austerities and penances, lasted nearly a century. Riquilda, whom the storm had frightened away like a tender dove, lived yet twenty years afterwards in that same solitude, perfecting her virtues by patience in the midst of continual sickness, till the Lord called her to Himself.

VENERABLE ALBINA, DRESSMAKER.

I.

ALBINA was born in Rome on the evening of the 28th of March, 1807, and was baptised three days after, receiving the names Albina Maria Louisa. The day was Holy Saturday, when the houses in Rome are blessed in memory of the exterminating angel having spared the first-born of Israel. By coincidence it happened that the priest was blessing her house when Albina was born, which made him exclaim: "This is an angel of benediction." This was a pleasing presage, which she never forgot after hearing it a few times from her mother's lips. Her parents, Francesco Luigi di Urbino and Teresa degli Angeli, of Roman birth, were not certainly rich, but by their labour they could have decently reared their daughters, Mary and Albina. But God, in His inscrutable designs, prepared for our heroine a life of sacrifice and penalties. The first misfortune which befell her was the death of her father, the sole support of the house, whom she lost in October of that same year. Her mother must have felt this unexpected blow very much. The friends of the family went to mingle their tears with those of the disconsolate widow, who was shocked on hearing some of them blame Divine Providence for taking the man who was useful in the house, and leaving a helpless family behind. What madness and injustice! To dare to correct the wise Lord of the universe! Without this apparent misfortune, it is more than probable that Albina would never have reached the great virtue which we admire in her.

The good Teresa, despising such low and impious

ideas, found a sweet balsam for her wounds in the Christian maxims. She raised her eyes and her heart to heaven, and, full of faith and resignation, offered to the Lord her costly sacrifice, which was not the less agreeable to the Father of Mercies because accompanied by lively grief. She was persuaded that the providence of God outlives all deaths and disasters, and that it is an injury to Him to put our whole confidence in human industry without looking for the prosperous issue to Him who regulates all for our benefit. "Cursed is the man,' says the Scripture, "who places all his confidence in man. Supported by these life-giving principles, the poor widow prepared herself to suffer all the effects of her sad loss. To such extreme misery was she reduced, that unable to attend to the education of her children with the fruits of her labour, she was compelled to sell her spare furniture. It is true that her elder daughter soon came to her assistance by sewing in a dressmaker's establishment; but what could a child earn between six and ten years of age? She consequently had enough of pains and bitterness, whose chalice she had to drain to the dregs one day after another for a long time.

And so the tender Albina was growing up in the shadow of poverty. Obedient and submissive she suffered without complaint all her inconveniences and privations, as a prelude of the peace and resignation which were afterwards to afford us such a brilliant example. Twelve years they spent in these straits, and then, their furniture all sold, their resources exhausted, and the earning of mother and daughter being insufficient for their wants, they were compelled to adopt some other mode of life. The elder daughter then got married, and took Albina to live with her, while her mother went to service in the house of an illustrious family named de Capranica. Needless to say what it cost Teresa to go to service, and separate from her

beloved daughter; but she saw in Jesus examples of greater humility, and prudently realised that it is preferable and more laudable to adopt any decent occupation whatever, no matter how low, than to appeal to occult mendicity. On the other hand, the noble family of Capranica so tried to sweeten Teresa's lot, that only with great violence could she tear herself away from them later on.

In the meantime, Albina, by Mary's side, grew up like a fresh flower, watered by the perennial streams of grace. As she was of a lively and ardent temperament, she was very succeptible of love and anger; but armed with mortification from her juvenile years, she learned how to avail herself of these two powerful passions to advance in virtue. Hence no disordered movements were ever noticed in her, and the vivacity of her disposition was ever accompanied by such peace and sweetness, that she captivated all hearts. She was early instructed in the catechism, whose maxims led her to the path of perfection before she knew what it was. But though her discernment was precocious and great the lights which God gave her, yet she needed a good guide, and the Lord provided one for her. Unfortunate the man who would direct himself in the path of life! Blind reason will try to guide the will contaminated by selflove, which hides from us our true good; and if the blind lead the blind, as Jesus says, both will fall into the ditch. Our Albina, often taken to confession by her mother to the church of St. Mary del Popolo, had as confessor an Augustinian friar, who was the priest of the church. But this good man, engaged in business of importance, could not bestow sufficient care on the cultivation of her soul; and so God sent her to another. There was another confessor of the order of St. Augustine in the same church, a man of consummate virtue, penitent, zealous, and given to prayer and retirement, named Father Poggiarelli. To the care of this prudent

director the Lord confided the girl's sanctification. In the absence of the parish priest Albina went to confession to Father Poggiarelli, and pleased with the advice he gave her, continued with him afterwards. She was then fourteen years of age. The man of God,

discovering at once the treasures of grace hid in that innocent soul, said to her, inaccents which went to her tender heart: "My daughter, I want you to be a saint, and a great saint." These sweet words ever resounded in Albina's bosom, and served her as an agreeable stimulus to aim at perfection. The servant of God commenced her new life with a general confession, accompanied by bitter tears for her past defects, and with edifying resolutions of seeking in future only to please God; not because she had any doubts about her previous confessions, or because before this day, called by her the day of her conversion, she did not lead an irreproachable life, but the better to secure sorrow for her faults, and to reanimate her fervour for greater things. Thenceforth she was only found at work by her sister's side, or at prayer in the church. Dances, fashions, walks, and

other diversions, which so much please incautious youths, were in Albina's eyes vanities unworthy of sensible people. Hence she looked with eyes of compassion on girls who pursued worldly pleasures, and prayed fervently for them. She attended to the poor with such

tenderness, that when one of them came to her door she hastened to her mother or sister to ask an alms for him, and she suffered great pain when she had to send them away without help. "God console you, brother," she would say, with Christian sweetness, we have nothing for you to-day!"

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As to obedience and submission to her elders, she was so far from failing in the slightest degree in them, that according to her mother's testimony, she would try to divine their wishes in order to carry them out before she was told. What a pity that the retirement of her life