Page:Travels from Aleppo to the city of Jerusalem, and through the Holy Land, in the year 1776.pdf/5

Rh in Europe, and go to their devotions morning and evening. After we had kissed the patriarch’s hand, we demanded what was to be seen, and the druggerman carried us to see Marrice’s Cross, of whom they recount this story:

“That a Venetian, in the time that the Franks had the country, came with his wife and one daughter to live there; and after some years his wife dying, he was resolved to go into the convent and live a religious life, and would therefore have his daughter to leave him, but his persuasions could not prevail with her; but rather than leave her father, she would put on man’s apparel, and live a devoted life with him also; which at last, though unwillingly, he assented to, she being young and handsome: there they lived very strictlyfor several years; afterwards her father died. The lay-brothers and fathers going out, as usual, to till the ground, she seldom went with them; chief of the convent keeping her at home, being much taken with such a handsome young man as he thought, whereupon they began to grumble, St. Marenna did not go with them; so that as the Fratres he was set out to work among them near the village Turs; presently after, one of the young virgins of that place proving with child, she came to