Her vigilance was so keen, that she never left unobserved any little recommendations of the Mother Prioress, or any of the small rules which render the religious life so meritorious.  One of the old nuns, having remarked her extraordinary fidelity on this point, ever afterwards regarded her as a Saint.  Soeur Therese was accustomed to say that she never did any great penances.  That was because her fervour counted as nothing the few that were allowed her.  It happened, however, that she fell ill through wearing for too long a time a small iron Cross, studded with sharp points, that pressed into her flesh.  “Such a trifle would not have caused this,” she said afterwards, “if God had not wished thus to make me understand that the greater austerities of the Saints are not meant for me—­nor for the souls that walk in the path of ‘spiritual childhood.’”

. . . . . . .

“The souls that are the most dear to My Father,” Our Lord once said to Saint Teresa, “are those He tries the most, and the greatness of their trials is the measure of His Love.”  Therese was a soul most dear to God, and He was about to fill up the measure of His Love by making her pass through a veritable martyrdom.  The reader will remember the call on Good Friday, April 3, 1896, when, to use her own expression, she heard the “distant murmur which announced the approach of the Bridegroom”; but she had still to endure long months of pain before the blessed hour of her deliverance.

On the morning of that Good Friday, she made so little of the haemorrhage of the previous night, that Mother Prioress allowed her to practise all the penances prescribed by the Rule for that day.  In the afternoon, a novice saw her cleaning windows.  Her face was livid, and, in spite of her great energy, it was evident that her strength was almost spent.  Seeing her fatigue, the novice, who loved her dearly, burst into tears, and begged leave to obtain her some little reprieve.  But the young novice-mistress strictly forbade her, saying that she was quite able to bear this slight fatigue on the day on which Jesus had suffered and died.

Soon a persistent cough made the Mother Prioress feel anxious; she ordered Soeur Therese a more strengthening diet, and the cough ceased for some time.  “Truly sickness is too slow a liberator,” exclaimed our dear little Sister, “I can only rely upon Love.”

She was strongly tempted to respond to the appeal of the Carmelites of Hanoi, who much desired to have her, and began a novena to the Venerable Theophane Venard[4] to obtain her cure, but alas! that novena proved but the beginning of a more serious phase of her malady.