'Pardon me,' said the padre, adding (to change the conversation), 'perhaps you know that St. Lucy was a country-woman of our own?'

'Like St. Fiacre, I suppose; but you must excuse my ignorance, for I never heard of the good lady until to-day,' I replied, with a smile.

'She was the daughter of a king.'

'I am rather sceptical on these points, father,' said I, smiling again, 'for in France all the ancient saints are sons or daughters of kings, counts, and emperors. Sanctity in those days was increased by rank.'

'You will find in Camerarius and in the French Breviary that she was the daughter of a Scottish king, of Macbeth the Usurper; who, to atone for the crimes of her father, after escaping from the castle of Dunsinnane, retired in 1160 to serve God in obscurity. Wandering from our native land she reached the banks of yonder river, the Meuse, and choosing a solitary place, a wooded mountain in the diocese of Verdun, there built unto herself a cell, where she died, in 1190, in all the odour of sanctity, and was enrolled among the saints by the Bishop of Verdun, Henry of Blois, otherwise called of Winchester, brother of Stephen king of England. Great pilgrimages have been made to her reliques, which in the summer season are kept in the church of Mont St. Lucy, erected in her honour in 1625 by a prince of the house of Guise, who espoused a sister of the present Duke Charles IV.'

'This is a curious story,' said I; 'but I suppose these reliques are only a few bones.'

'Heaven pity thee!' exclaimed the old priest; 'bones, quotha! I would that you were one of the ancient faith to see the saint as we see her—to see her as if she died but yesterday.'

'Indeed!'

'Her body is completely enclosed in a transparent coffin of the purest Venetian crystal, and therein she lies, robed in white, looking lovely in her virgin purity, for in death her features resumed all the bloom of youth. Her tresses are of the brightest gold; her features are soft and placid; the long lashes of her eyes are closed, imparting a charming expression of modesty and repose to her sleeping face, and a virgin crown encircles her brows. Her hands, small and delicate, are crossed upon her breast; one retains a golden chalice, the other her crucifix; and when prayers of more than ordinary purity are raised to heaven at her shrine, her lips have been seen to smile, and a shining brightness to spread over her face and robes—a light that filled the beholders with extasy and awe. Moreover, through the pores of that crystal coffin there cometh at times a fragrance—a delightful perfume, like that emitted of old by the body of Polycarp, the early martyr.'

'And she was a daughter of Macbeth! By my soul, I would give a louis to see all this.'