Pace lightly over the floor!  Thy foot treads on the graves of the pious:  the flat, modest stone here in the corner covers the dust of the noble Queen Philippa.  She, that mighty England’s daughter, the great-hearted, the immortal woman, who with wisdom and courage defended her consort’s throne, that consort who rudely and barbarously cast her off!  Vadstene’s cloister gave her shelter—­the grave here gave her rest.

We seek one grave.  It is not known—­it is forgotten, as she was in her lifetime.  Who was she?  The cloistered sister Elizabeth, daughter of the Holstein Count, and once the bride of King Hakon of Norway.  Sweet creature! she proudly—­but not with unbecoming pride—­advanced in her bridal dress, and with her court ladies, up to her royal consort.  Then came King Valdemar, who by force and fraud stopped the voyage, and induced Hakon to marry Margaret, then eleven years of age, who thereby got the crown of Norway.  Elizabeth was sent to Vadstene cloister, where her will was not asked.  Afterwards when Margaret—­who justly occupies a great place in the history of Scandinavia, but only comparatively a small one in the hearts—­sat on the throne, powerful and respected, visited the then flourishing Vadstene, where the Abbess of the cloister was St. Bridget’s grand-daughter, her childhood’s friend, Margaret kissed every monk on the cheek.  The legend is well known about him, the handsomest, who thereupon blushed.  She kissed every nun on the hand, and also Elizabeth, her, whom she would only see here.  Whose heart throbbed loudest at that kiss?  Poor Elizabeth, thy grave is forgotten, but not the wrong thou didst suffer.

We now enter the sacristy.  Here, under a double coffin lid, rests an age’s holiest saint in the North, Vadstene cloister’s diadem and lustre—­St. Bridget.

On the night she was born, says the legend, there appeared a beaming cloud in the heavens, and on it stood a majestic virgin, who said:  “Of Birger is born a daughter whose admirable voice shall be heard over the whole world.”  This delicate and singular child grew up in the castle of her father, Knight Brake.  Visions and revelations appeared to her, and these increased when she, only thirteen years of age, was married to the rich Ulf Gudmundsen, and became the mother of many children.  “Thou shalt be my bride and my agent,” she heard Christ say, and every one of her actions was, as she averred, according to his announcement.  After this she went to Niddaros, to St. Oluf’s holy shrine:  she then went to Germany, France, Spain and Rome.

Sometimes honoured and sometimes mocked, she travelled, even to Cyprus and Palestine.  Conscious of approaching death, she again reached Rome, where her last revelation was, that she should rest in Vadstene, and that this cloister especially should be sanctified by God’s love.  The splendour of the Northern lights does not extend so far around the earth as the glory of this fair saint, who now is but a legend.  We