Even this did not hurt me much, but when I thought of the rosy-faced
child in the carriage, and then of my own darling at Mrs. Oliver's as I
had seen her last, so thin and pale, and with her little bib stained by
her curdled milk, a feeling I had never had before pierced to my very
soul.
I asked myself if this was what God looked down upon and permitted--that
because I had obeyed what I still believed to be the purest impulse of
my nature, love, my child must be made to suffer.
Then something hard began to form in my heart. I told myself that what I
had been taught to believe about God was falsehood and deception.
All this time I was trying to hush down my mind by saying my prayer,
which called on the gracious Virgin Mary to intercede for me with my
Redeemer, and the holy Saints of God to assist me.
"_Assist me by thy grace, that I may be able to declare my sins to the
priest, thy Vicar_."
It was of no use. Every moment my heart was hardening, and what I had
intended to confess about my wicked thoughts of the night before was
vanishing away.
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