21
supported chiefly by charitable contributions from the ladies of Sienna.
The simple young man, who scarcely knew any other people in the world than those under whose tuition he had been held, readily promised to obey their injunctions. They bound him by a solemn, but rash vow, to affect blindness, and to beg alms, till they should advertise him to the contrary. He kept his promise, and, for a considerable space of time, was led through the country, receiving such alms as benevolent people were pleased to give him.
At last the period arrived, when those priests and friars who were in the secret of his not being really blind, thought it expedient that he should be received from his hard condition.—
At the east end of the village of Musselburgh, in Mid-Lothian, was a celebrated chapel, dedicated to the honour of the Virgin Mary. Its proper name was Loretta. but it was vulgarly called Alariet, or Lawriet. There was also a chapel of the same name in Perth; and many credulous people in the Lothians, and at Perth, as well as the people of Loretta, in Italy, believed that their chapel contained within it the identical small brick built house in which the blessed Mother of our Lord had dwelt when at Nazareth; and that it had been miraculously conveyed and upheld entire, from its original seat, by the ministry of angels.—
It was in the well frequented chapel at Musselburgh, and where miracles were most commonly expected to be seen, that the pupil of the nuns was to receive his sight. Public intimation, of the miracle to be performed, was given in
