The Innocent Read Free Page A

you two out of difficulties has been a full-time occupation. You are really going to have to change your ways, Matti."
    "Reverend Mother knows how impossible that will be for me," Matti replied. "That is why I am going to remain with Sister Cuthbert, taking care of the little girls. Reverend Mother says that will help me to use up all my energies until I am too old to have any. She says we all serve God in our own way. Sister Agnes says if my voice continues to improve, I shall be a head cantrix one day. I would like that, for you both know how I love music!"
    "But once Matilda FitzWilliam becomes Sister Columba," Isa said wickedly, "there can be no more visits to the dairy barn to see Father Anselm swiving the dairymaid with his big poker."
    Matti chuckled. "It’s a shame you would never come with us, Elf. You can't possibly know what you're going to miss unless you can see it. I think I am making a big sacrifice now that I have seen a man and a woman together in the throes of passion. I am filled with regret that my family has not the means to marry me off to a big healthy fellow. Still, I have accepted my fate, and am the better for knowing the forfeit I make for our good Lord’s sake."
    "I can't wait until Sir Martin and I can be joined in the marriage bed," Isa said. "They say it hurts to lose your virginity, but afterward it doesn't hurt at all. When Father Anselm puts his big, thick manhood into Hilda, the dairymaid, how she squeals with delight!"
    "And waves her legs about until she wraps them tight about our good priest," Matti noted with relish. "Then they bump up and down until the crisis comes. I like it when he pillows himself on her nice big breasts, and sometimes, Elf, he even suckles on her like a babe at its mother’s breast. It’s very exciting to watch."
    Elf put her hands over her ears. "Matti! Matti! You know I don't want to hear such things. You are very, very wicked to gossip so salaciously. If you do not cease, I shall have to tell Reverend Mother, and I don't want to tell. How I fear for your soul, Matti."
    Matti reached out and patted her friend with a plump hand. "Do not fret yourself about me, Elf. Once I have taken my vows, there will be no more visits to the dairy barn, alas. One cannot serve two masters, and my master is our good Lord, not the lord of lust and darkness."
    "I am relieved to hear you say it, Matti," Elf replied, mollified. She loved both these girls with whom she had been raised. It did not matter that Isabeaux St. Simon was worldly, for she would be a wife soon; but Matilda FitzWilliam was another matter, particularly as she was to help Sister Cuthbert with the little girls in the convent’s care. She had uneasily broached the subject with the nun who had raised them just a few months ago; however, Sister Cuthbert did not seem to take the matter very seriously. "But some of the girls sneak into the dairy barn to hide and watch Hilda when she sports with a lover," Elf told the nun, a worried look upon her face. "Even girls who are to take holy orders," she finished in an unhappy and shocked whisper.
    Sister Cuthbert had said almost what Matti said. "But they are not nuns yet, little Elf, and they are curious as to what they will miss, if anything. Having seen the carnal act, they will either find it unpleasant and be glad to be free of such things, or they will finally understand the loss they must forgo if they are to serve God properly. There is no harm in seeing as long as they remain chaste. Most of the girls in our care go to the dairy barn at one time or another. Even I did when I was very young," she told the surprised Elf. "Do not worry, my child. Matilda FitzWilliam will be a good nun."
    "But I didn't say-" Elf began.
    "No," Sister Cuthbert said, "you didn't." Then she smiled. "Perhaps you should go to the dairy barn one day, Elf, before you take your final vows."
    But Elf shook her head violently. "Never!" she told the nun. "I want to be as pure an offering as I can