By the kindness of the Count, her relative, she was enabled to make a pilgrimage to S. James, of Compostella, in company with a pious lady. On her return, she resolved to adopt the life of a recluse, and after long preparation, and a visit to Rome, where she spent three years, she obtained the desire of her heart, and received the veil from the hands of a canon of the Church of Castel Fiorentino, her native place, and bearing the Cross, preceded and followed by all the clergy and people, she was conducted to her cell, and, having been admitted into it, the door was walled up. In this cell she spent many years, conversing with those who visited her, and receiving her food through a window, through which, also, the priest communicated her. Two large snakes crept in at this window, one day, and thenceforth took up their abode with her. She received these fellow-comrades with great repugnance, but overcame it, and fed them from her own store of provisions. They would glide forth when no one was near, but never failed to return for the night, and when she took her meals. On one occasion they were injured by some peasants who pursued them with sticks and stones. Verdiana healed them, nevertheless the rustics attacked them again, killed one, and drove the other away, so that it never returned to the cell of the recluse. When the holy woman felt that the hour of her release approached, she made her last confession and received the Blessed Sacrament through her window, and then closing it opened her psalter, and began to recite the penitential psalms. Next morning the people finding the window closed, and receiving no answer to their taps, broke into the cell, and found her dead, kneeling with eyes and hands upraised to heaven, and the psalter before her open at the psalm _Miserere mihi_, "Have mercy upon me, O God! after Thy great goodness; and according to the multitude of Thy mercies, do away mine offences." [1] Vincent of Beauvais, and other late writers, say that the name of God was found after his death written in gold letters on his heart; but this is only one instance of the way in which legends have been coined to explain titles, the spiritual significance of which was not considered sufficiently wondrous for the vulgar. [2] Lib. vi. c. 8. [3] De Bel. Jud. vii. 3. [4] As S. Ephraem related the incident several times to his monks, and they wrote it down from what he had related, there exist several versions of the story slightly differing from one another. [5] Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 16. [6] Moreover it contradicts the positive statements of more reliable authors, that Bridget was the legitimate daughter of Brotseach, the wife of Dubtach. [7] But this legend is given very differently in another Life, and Cogitosus and the first and fourth Lives do not say anything about it. [8] As near as can be ascertained; see Lanigan, Eccl. Hist. of Ireland, vol. 1, p. 455. [Illustration: Tomb of Joshua. _From the Greek Menology._]