around to look; a woman, who had the white hair of
age, and no other apparel, was black from crown to
heel with forty-seven years of holy abstinence from
water. Groups of gazing pilgrims stood around all
and every of these strange objects, lost in reverent
wonder, and envious of the fleckless sanctity which
these pious austerities had won for them from an
exacting heaven.

By and by we went to see one of the supremely
great ones. He was a mighty celebrity; his fame had
penetrated all Christendom; the noble and the re-
nowned journeyed from the remotest lands on the
globe to pay him reverence. His stand was in the
center of the widest part of the valley; and it took all