Lubotshka’s bitter tears, and hearing Grandmamma’s lamentations, and listening to Papa and St. Jerome talking together. “He was a fine boy,” Papa would say with tears in his eyes. “Yes,” St. Jerome would reply, “but a sad scapegrace and good-for-nothing.” “But you should respect the dead,” would expostulate Papa. “YOU were the cause of his death; YOU frightened him until he could no longer bear the thought of the humiliation which you were about to inflict upon him.

Away from me, criminal!” Upon that St. Jerome would fall upon his knees and implore forgiveness, and when the forty days were ended my soul would fly to Heaven, and see there something wonderfully beautiful, white, and transparent, and know that it was Mamma.