During her frequent trances she spoke
accurately in sixty-nine different languages; there was no hair
whatever on her head which was "spotless as an egg." She put baskets of
sea urchins into her bed and, as a penance for what she called "her
many sins," forced herself to catch the legions of vermin that infested
her brown blanket, count them, separate the males from the females, set
them free once more, and begin over again. She died at the age of
fourteen years and two months. Her corpse forthwith became roseate in
colour, exhaled a delicious odour of violets for twenty weeks, and
performed countless miracles. On dissection, a portrait of Saint James
of Compostella was discovered embedded in her liver.
Saint Eulalia appeared too late to find her proper niche in Monsignor
Perrelli's ANTIQUITIES or to be commemorated in some worthy
architectural monument by the Good Duke Alfred; too late--and this is
doubtless a lucky circumstance--to become the victim of one of Father
Capocchio's offensive sneers.
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