“And what I tell you,” she said, “the mother of the girl told me, and God revealed it to her.”
The news soon spread through all the neighbouring towns. Soon afterwards the girl was brought to bed, and duly delivered of a female child, at which she and her foolish mother were both astonished and angry, and the neighbours also, who expected the holy hermit to have been there to receive the child.
The report spread quite as quickly as the previous one, and the hermit was one of the first to hear of it, and quickly fled into another country—I know not where—to deceive another woman or girl, or perhaps into the desert of Egypt to perform penance, with a contrite heart, for his sin. However that may be, the poor girl was dishonoured; which was a great pity, for she was fair, good, and amiable.
STORY THE FIFTEENTH — THE CLEVER NUN.
By Monseigneur De La Roche
Of a nun whom a monk wished to deceive, and how he offered to shoo her his weapon that she might feel it, but brought with him a companion whom he put forward in his place, and of the answer she gave him.