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Lapa became the mother of two delicate daughters at a birth; [1347] but the weakness of their bodies was not destined to impair the energy of their souls. The mother not being able to nourish both, found herself obliged to confide one of them to the care of a stranger. God willed that the infant she herself retained, should be her whom he had chosen for his spouse; and when the infants received baptism, the mother's choice was called Catharine, and the other Jane. Jane soon bore to Heaven the name and grace that she received in baptism; she lived but a few days, and Catharine remained alone to save, in after years, a multitude of souls. Lapa consoled herself on the death of her daughter, by tending more carefully the one that was left, and she frequently acknowledged that she loved her more tenderly than all the others, probably because she had been able to nurse her herself, for it was the only one out of the twenty-five children, with which God had blessed her, to whom she had been able to give this maternal attention.

Catharine was educated as a child that belonged to God. As soon as she began to walk alone, she was loved by all who saw her, and her conversation was so discreet, that it was with difficulty her mother could keep her at home; her neighbors and relatives would bring her to their houses in order to listen to her child-like reasonings, and enjoy her infantine sweetness. They found so much consolation in her company that they did