not call her Catharine, but Euphrosyne, which signifies joy, satisfaction. Perhaps they were ignorant of this meaning, and did not know what I learned later, that Catharine had resolved to imitate St. Euphrosyne; and it may be, also, that in her childish phrases she uttered some words resembling Euphrosyne, and those who repeated her words gave her this name.
Her youth realized the promises of her early infancy: her words possessed a mysterious power which inclined the soul to God. As soon as one conversed with her, sadness was dispelled from the heart, vexations and troubles were forgotten and a ravishing peace took possession of tho soul, so extraordinary indeed that one could only imagine it to resemble that enjoyed by the Apostles on Mt. Thabor when one exclaimed — "it is good for us to be here!" Bonum est nos hie esse. She was scarcely five years old when she would recite an Ave Maria (Hail Mary), on each step of the stairs on going up and coming down, accompanying it with a genuflexion, and she has since assured me that she thus strove to raise her mind from things visible to things invisible. The mercy of God, deigned to recompense this pious being, and encouraged her by a wonderful vision, thus lavishing the dews of his heavenly grace on this tender plant which was destined to become a towering and magnificent cedar.
Catharine was six years of age, when her mother sent her, with her little brother Stephen, to the house of their sister Bonaventura, either to carry something, or obtain some information: their commission being executed, the children were returning by the valley known as the Valle Fiatta, when Catnarine, raising her eyes to heaven, saw opposite to her, on he gable end of the Church of the Friar Preachers, a splendid throne occupied by our Lord Jesus Christ clothed in pontifical ornaments, and his sacred
