And the Kings of the East were no ordinary saints; to the relics of the
Three Magi, who followed the Star of Bethlehem, and were the first
potentates of the earth who adored its Saviour, well might the pious
Catholic suppose that a peculiar power and a healing sanctity would
belong. Each of the circle (St. Amand, who had been more than usually
silent, and even gloomy during the day, had retired to his own apartment,
for there were some moments when, in the sadness of his thoughts, he
sought that solitude which he so impatiently fled from at others)--each
of the circle had some story to relate equally veracious and
indisputable, of an infirmity cured, or a prayer accorded, or a sin
atoned for at the foot of the holy tomb. One story peculiarly affected
Lucille; the narrator, a venerable old man with gray locks, solemnly
declared himself a witness of its truth.

A woman at Anvers had given birth to a son, the offspring of an illicit
connection, who came into the world deaf and dumb. The unfortunate
mother believed the calamity a punishment for her own sin. "Ah, would,"
said she, "that the affliction had fallen only upon me! Wretch that I
am, my innocent child is punished for my offence!" This, idea haunted
her night and day; she pined and could not be comforted. As the child
grew up, and wound himself more and more round her heart, his caresses
added new pangs to her remorse; and at length (continued the narrator)
hearing perpetually of the holy fame of the Tomb of Cologne, she resolved
upon a pilgrimage barefoot to the shrine. "God is merciful," said she;
"and He who called Magdalene his sister may take the mother's curse from
the child." She then went to Cologne; she poured her tears, her
penitence, and her prayers at the sacred tomb. When she returned to her
native town, what was her dismay as she approached her cottage to behold
it a heap of ruins! Its blackened rafters and yawning casements