For, finding that martyrdom was out of the question, she proposed
to her ever-ready brother that they should become hermits, and
for days the two children worked away trying to build a hermitage
near their father's house.
But the rough and heavy pieces of granite with which they sought
to build their hermitage proved more than they could handle, and
their knowledge of mason-work was about as imperfect as had been
their familiarity with crusading and the country of the Moors.
"The stones that we piled one upon another," wrote Theresa
herself in later years, "immediately fell down, and so it came to
pass that we found no means of accomplishing our wish."
The pluck and piety, however, that set this conscientious and
sympathetic little girl to such impossible tasks were certain to
blossom into something equally hard and unselfish when she grew
to womanhood. And so it proved. Her much-loved but
romance-reading mother died when she was twelve years old, and
Theresa felt her loss keenly.
She was a very clever and ambitious girl, and with a mother's
guiding hand removed she became impatient under the restraints
which her stern old father, Don Alphonso, placed upon her.
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