help of any kind, and my life, in consequence would have been a most unhappy one.
One day, when under the weight of the deepest sorrow, I went with some relatives to the hospital. Whilst we were by the patient's bed, I heard how many times he had been bled, and at the sight of the death-like pallor and emaciation of his features, I burst into tears and nothing seemed able to console me. But thanks be to God, Who deigned to comfort me in an unexpected manner and to change my sorrow into the greatest consolation! Some little distance off I noticed a young man with a small book in his hands; he went to a bed next to the one where my son was lying, and having opened the book, showed to the patient a picture of a boy about fifteen years of age, whose virtuous life was related in the book. He advised the patient to read and to imitate the virtues of the boy who lived and died like a saint. At the sight of the book and the picture I thought at once that the boy represented in it was some saint, and approaching, I said to the one who held the book in his hands, "for the love of God and of Our Blessed Lady give me one of those books for my son." He answered that he would willingly do so, but that it would be useless to give it to one in delirium to read, and that it would be better for him to recommend himself to Domiriic Savio,
