gh in vain, by falsehood and
calumny, to divert the faithful from the springs of grace that flowed
from the saint's tomb. The Church took measures so that these graces
should not remain reserved for a few children, but should be diffused
throughout all Penguin Christianity. Monks took up their quarters in the
grotto, they built a monastery, a chapel, and a hostelry on the coast,
and pilgrims began to flock thither.

As if strengthened by a longer sojourn in heaven, the blessed Orberosia
now performed still greater miracles for those who came to lay their
offerings on her tomb. She gave hopes to women who had been hitherto
barren, she sent dreams to reassure jealous old men concerning the
fidelity of the young wives whom they had suspected without cause, and
she protected the country from plagues, murrains, famines, tempests, and
dragons of Cappadocia.

But during the troubles that desolated the kingdom in the time of King
Collic and his successors, the tomb of St. Orberosia was plundered of
its wealth, the monastery burned down, and the monks dispersed. The
road that had been so long trodden by devout pilgrims was overgrown with
furze and heather, and the blue thistles of the sands. For a hundred
years the miraculous tomb had been visited by none save vipers,
weasels, and bats, when, one day the saint appeared to a peasant of the
neighbourhood, Momordic by name.

"I am the virgin Orberosia," said she to him; "I have chosen thee to
restore my sanctuary. Warn the inhabitants of the country that if they
allow my memory to be blotted out, and leave my tomb without honour and
wealth, a new dragon will come and devastate Penguinia."

Learned churchmen held an inquiry concerning this apparition, and
pronounced it genuine, and not diabolical but truly heavenly, and in
later years it was remarked that in France, in like circumstances, St.
Foy and St. Catherine had acted in the same way and made use of similar
language.

The monastery was restored and pilgrims flocked to it anew. The virgin
Orberosia worked greater and greater miracles. She cured divers hurtful
maladies, particularly club-foot, dropsy, paralysis, and St. Guy's
disease. The monks who kept the tomb were enjoying an enviable opulence,
when the saint, appearing to King Draco the Great, ordered him to
recognise her as the heavenly patron of the kingdom and to transfer her
precious remains to the cathedral of Alca.

In consequence, the odoriferous relics of that