 Augustine then tells us about one of Monica's virtues that might seem small, but can actually do great good and prevent great evil. There was another great gift, my God, my mercy, that you gave to your good steward and his womb you created me. Sometimes she would hear one woman saying a lot of bitter things about another woman, as when swollen and undigested discord turned someone's stomach, and in the heartburn she tells a present friend about an absent enemy and her breath is all raw hatred. But my mother would never utter a word of it, one to the other, unless it would help to reconcile them. In fact, Augustine noted, it's better still to throw water on the fires of hatred by speaking well of someone not present, and that is what she was like with you, Lord, as her intimate teacher in the schoolhouse of the heart.