which the saint lived during her married life, and at his own expense had it converted into a little chapel; and so it remains to the present, and in it is preserved as a relic the mantle she wore in the world. We must not pass over in silence a noteworthy fact recorded by some biographers of the saint, which is confirmed by a tradition in Rocca Porena, and sworn to in a deposition included in the first process. It is this: The saint's room received its light whilst she dwelt in it, and until it was changed into a chapel, from a little window, or, rather, aperture, in the roof, and there, as is piously believed, the angels used to appear who came to comfort her in her sorrows. When she entered the convent others dwelt there until the time of her beatification. Her successors in the house--and amongst them was a priest, Don Diamante di Pier Felice, who was examined as a witness in the first process--tried to close the aperture; but all their efforts were fruitless, for as often as they closed it they found it opened again, and it was, moreover, observed that through that opening neither rain nor snow ever entered. The convent cell, too, which Rita sanctified by so many years of her presence, by her profound meditations, and by the pitiless scourging of her body, and where the two coffins in which she was first buried are at present preserved, began to be held in veneration from an early period and to be looked upon as a private oratory. In brief, it is an undoubted fact that the religious honours shown to our saint began from the very time of her death, and as time went on they increased without any interruption and became more distinguished, till veneration to Rita was spread in a singular manner throughout the whole Catholic world. Thus are the humble exalted by God, and thus are the just in the everlasting memory of the ages. CHAPTER VI SOLEMN BEATIFICATION OF RITA A period of one hundred and seventy years had passed since Rita went to live crowned with glory in the kingdom of the blessed, where there is no change of years or of things, and from whence she was regarding with compassionate eyes the ever-changing vicissitudes of this valley of tears. In that interval between Rita's death and her solemn beatification the world had changed a hundred times its form and appearance. Convulsions of nature, ruling passions, kingdoms ceasing to be, new Governments, dominions extended, fires of war enkindled, extinguished, and enkindled again, heresies ever variable, now spreading themselves, now kept within bounds, councils assembled, Apostolic enterprises, and the barque of Peter always safe amid the shocks of tempests--these are the things that make up the long history of that time, and, indeed, of every epoch.