Justine’s Trials and Her Mother’s Guilt

“When my dearest aunt died, every one was too much occupied in their own grief

to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness with the most anxious affection.

Poor Justine was very ill; but other trials were reserved for her. “One by one,

her brothers and sister died; and her mother, with the exception of her neglected

daughter, was left childless. The conscience of the woman was troubled; she began to think

that the deaths of her favourites was a judgment from heaven to chastise her partiality.

She was a Roman Catholic; and I believe her confessor confirmed the idea which she had conceived.

Accordingly, a few months after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called