November 10, 1887
Venice Thursday 10 (Evening)
My dear little Mary,
Finally the time has come when I can write to you, we won't go for a walk this evening, I preferred to come and relax a little with you.
Please tell my darling little Aunt that she could not imagine how much her letter touched me, I would like to write to her to thank her but I hope that she will excuse her little daughter and that she will guess what my heart would say to him; besides, I have very little time because Céline wouldn't want me to stay up too long.
You can't get an idea, my darling little sister, of all that we see, it's really wonderful, I would never have imagined that we would see such beautiful things; there are so many that I have to give up telling you about them, I'll do it much better when I'm in my dear little Lisieux that all the beauties of Italy cannot make me forget.
Dear little sister, how are you? how are you all ? good I hope. Are you as cheerful as when we left?
Oh ! Marie if you only knew how often I think of you all. In the beautiful churches where we go I do not forget you. I also thought of you in front of the marvels of nature, next to these mountains of Switzerland that we crossed, we pray so well, we feel that God is there!
How small I seemed in front of these gigantic mountains!
This country of Italy is very beautiful, we now enjoy its beautiful blue sky. This afternoon we visited the monuments of Venice by gondola, it's lovely.
It seems very funny to me to hear around us the language of Italy, it is very beautiful, very harmonious. People at the hotel call me Signorella but I don't understand anything other than that word which means little lady.
I would like to write often but it's incredible how full our days are, we can only write very late at night. I am completely ashamed of my letter, I wrote it very quickly and the ideas do not follow each other, I see that I have not yet begun to tell you what I would have liked, I have so many things to tell you, so much to ask you, if I listened to myself I would go on for a long time but Céline wouldn't let me finish, she even made me hurry up very quickly.
Thank my uncle for the nice little note he gave us, he made us all very happy, kiss him HARD for me. Don't forget my little Jeanne, I often think of her.
Farewell darling little sister, think sometimes of your little Thérèse who thinks so often of you. (You know, I haven't forgotten what you did for me on a Sunday).
Your little Therese
Papa is well, he tells you all a lot of things.
P CT Hello to Maria and Marcelline.
