Letter 75. To Dona Ines Nieto, Seville, June 19, 1575

Thanks for thé gift of a statue. JESUS! May the grace of the Holy Spirit ever be with your Honour.

HAVE not forgotten your kindness in giving me the statue of our Lady,” which must be very fine since Sefior Albornoz is satisfied with it. Please give it to the person sent for it by our Father Master Gracian, who has undertaken to deliver it to me safely. I shall beg our Lady to make you her true

! This letter was first published by P. Fidel Fita in the Boletin de la R. Acad. de la Hist., Madrid, Jan. 1915. The name of the addressee and the date are lost, but no doubt it was written in 1575.

? This statue is still at the convent, daughter. Will you tell Sefior Albornoz that, being so far off, I do not know whether he has taken any further steps in the matter about which you wrote to me at Valladolid? I am well, glory be to God, and am prospering in the place to which obedience has brought me. I heartily wish you good health and progress in the right path in which you have begun to serve our Lord. God grant you may advance far, and may He remove you from the turmoil of the court,‘ though it does no harm to one who truly loves Him.

Written on June rg, in the house of the glorious San José, Seville.

Your Honour’s unworthy servant, Teresa de Jesus, Carmelite.

CCCCLXVII Seville, May 3 or 4, ECTO. TO DONA MARIA ...

; JESUS!

May the grace of the Holy Spirit ever be with your Honour, Dofia Maria. lire that the heat and all my past labours have been well worth undergoing, and had they been: worse, I would gladly have borne