the Saints the virgins are always getting into trouble and I don’t know why.The dictionary says,Virgin, woman (usually a young woman) who is and remains in a state of inviolate chastity. Now I have to look up inviolate and chastity and all I can find here is that inviolate means not violated and chastity means chaste and that means pure from unlawful sexual intercourse. Now I have to look up intercourse and that leads to intromission, which leads to intromittent, the copulatory organ of any male animal. Copulatory leads to copula- tion, the union of the sexes in the art of generation and I don’t know what that means and I’m too weary going from one word to another in this heavy dictionary which leads me on a wild goose chase from this word to that word and all because the people who wrote the dictionary don’t want the likes of me to know anything. All I want to know is where I came from but if you ask anyone they tell you ask someone else or send you from word to word. All these virgin martyrs are told by Roman judges they have to give up their faith and accept the Roman gods but they say, Nay, and the judges have them tortured and killed. My favorite is St. Christina the Astonishing who takes ages to die.The judge says, Cut off her breast, and when they do she throws it at him and he goes deaf dumb and blind. Another judge is brought on the case and he says, Cut off the other  breast,  and  the  same  thing  happens. They  try  to  kill  her  with arrows but they just bounce off her and kill the soldiers who shot them. They try to boil her in oil but she rocks in the vat and takes a nap for herself.Then the judges get fed up and have her head cut off and that does the job.The feast of St. Christina the Astonishing is the twenty- fourth of July and I think I’ll keep that for myself along with the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on the fourth of October. The librarian says,You have to go home now, the rain is stopped, and when I’m going out the door she calls me back.She wants to write a note to my mother and she doesn’t mind one bit if I read it.The note says,Dear Mrs.McCourt,Just when you think Ireland is gone to the dogs altogether you find a boy sitting in the library so absorbed in the Lives of the Saints he doesn’t realize the rain has stopped and you have to drag him away from the aforesaid Lives. I think, Mrs. McCourt, you might have a future priest on your hands and I will light a candle in hopes it comes true. I remain,Yours truly, Catherine O’Riordan,Asst. Librarian. . . . 286