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Rh for the nervous girl. That her disease was chiefly mental is evident from her last message to Doña Briceño. She begged her teacher and all the sisters “to pray God to call her to the state in life where she could best serve him; and yet,” she adds, “I had a horror of being a nun, and a fear of marriage.”

Don Alfonso, although distressed at his young daughter’s condition, was delighted to welcome her back to his lonely home. He thought that a change of air, with young companions, would soon restore her to health; and he took her with him to make a visit at her married sister’s country home, situated some miles from Avila, in the pretty village of Castellanos de la Cañada. Here the beautiful mountain scenery, the country sights and sounds, and above all, the companionship of her sister and her sister’s children, soon affected her body and mind. She now grew more cheerful, her old vivacity returned, and soon she was here, as everywhere, the life of the house. “Marie would have liked to have me stay with her always,” she wrote, “and her husband also treated me with much