"Let us go into the Foundling," said the mother-superior, leading the way to the last house of the eastern row of buildings.
Ah! here was a sight sorrowful enough to make the "angels weep!"
The abbess led her companion into a long room, clean, warm, light and airy, with about thirty narrow little cots, arranged in two rows against the walls, fifteen on each side, with a long pa.s.sage between them.
About half a dozen of these cots were empty. On the others lay about twenty-four of the most pitiable of all our Lord"s poor--young infants abandoned by their unnatural parents. All these were under twelve months old, and were pale, thin, and famished-looking. Some were sleeping, and seemingly, ah! so aged and care-worn in their sleep; some were clasping nursery-bottles in their skeleton hands, and sucking away for dear life; one little miserable was wailing in restless pain, and sending its anguished eyes around in appealing looks for relief.
Four women of the sisterhood were on duty here, and each one sat with a pining infant on her lap, while there was no one to attend to the wants of that wailing little sufferer on the bed.
"Oh, merciful Father in Heaven! what a sight!" cried Salome, overcome with compa.s.sionate sorrow.
"Yes, it is piteous! most piteous!" said the mother-superior, in a mournful tone. "We do the very best we can for these poor, deserted babes; but young infants, bereft of their mother"s milk, which is their life, and of their mother"s tender love and intuitive care, suffer more than any of us can estimate, and are almost sure to perish, out of _this_ life, at least. With all our care and pains, more than two-thirds of them die."
"Is there no help for this?" sadly inquired the visitor.
"No help within ourselves. But the peasant women in our neighborhood have Christian spirits and tender hearts. When any one among them loses her sucking child, she comes to us and asks for one of our motherless babes.
We select the most needing of them and give it to her, and the nurse child has then a chance for its life; but even then, if it lives, it is because some other child has died and made room for it."
"Oh, it is piteous! it is piteous, beyond all words to express! Dest.i.tute childhood, dest.i.tute old age, are both sorrowful enough, Heaven knows!
But they have power to make their sufferings known, and to ask for help!
_But dest.i.tute infancy!_ Oh! look here! look here! Can anything on earth be so pathetic as this?
"They are so innocent; they have not brought their evils on themselves.
They are so helpless! They have not even words to tell their pain, or ask for relief! Mother! You said that I might choose my work! I have chosen it. It is here. And I begin it from this moment," said Salome.
And she threw off her hat and cloak, and drew her gloves and cast them all on a chair, and went and took up the wailing infant from the cot.
The abbess sat down and watched her.
She soothed the baby"s plaints upon her bosom as she walked it, up and down the floor, singing a sweet, nursery song in a low and tender voice, until it fell asleep. Then she came and laid it sleeping on its cot.
"My dear daughter," said the abbess, gravely, "before you select this field of duty, I must warn you that it is, and it _must needs_ be, of all charitable administrations, the most laborious and trying."
"It may be so; but it is also the most divine," said Salome, with a grave, sweet smile. "Listen, dear mother. I know not how it is, but--with all its pathos--the sphere of this room is heavenly. And while I held that baby to my bosom and soothed it to sleep, its little, soft form seemed to draw all the fever and soreness from my own aching heart as well. Here is my earthly work, dear mother! Nay, rather, here is my heavenly mission and consolation. Leave me here."
The mother-superior took the votaress at her word, and left her then and there.
In the course of the same day a small closet, communicating with the infants" dormitory, was fitted up as a sleeping berth for Salome, and her few personal effects were conveyed from the convent and arranged within her new dwelling.
Salome had not mistaken her vocation. To serve these forsaken and suffering children was to her a labor of love; to relieve them, a work of joy.
She never left her charge, except to go to chapel, or to her meals, which she took at the nuns" table, in their refectory.
On Christmas Eve, as she returned from dinner, Sister Francoise invited her to look into the work-room and see the Christmas presents in process of preparation.
To please the kind sister, she followed her into a long hall, furnished with little tables, at each of which sat two or three of the nuns at work.
As Salome, with her conductor, walked down the room, she saw that on one table was a pile of children"s ill.u.s.trated books of great variety to suit little ones, from three years old to thirteen. The two nuns seated at the table were busy writing in the books the names of those for whom they were intended.
Another table was piled with woolen scarfs, socks, gloves, and night-caps for the aged men and women, which the two nuns seated there were employed in rolling up into separate little parcels, and labeling with the names of the intended recipients.
Still another, and a longer table, was bright and gay with party-colored sc.r.a.ps of silk, satin, velvet, ribbon, muslin, lace and linen, with which half a dozen young nuns seated there were cheerfully engaged in making dresses for a basket full of dolls, for the Christmas gifts to the infants.
The blooming young nun Felecitie presided at this table. Seeing Salome approach with Sister Francoise, she accosted her:
"Our holy mother told us that you would come in and help us dress these dolls."
"And so I would have done, only I found some living and suffering dolls to dress and feed," said Salome, smiling.
"Yes, I know, the babies of the Foundling. Well, we are dressing these dolls for your babies," said the smiling sister.
"But do you suppose my tiny little ones will care for dolls?" inquired Salome.
"Be sure they will; from six months old, up, boys or girls, sick or well, babies will love dolls. I have seen a sick baby hug her doll, just as I have seen a sick mother clasp her child," answered the sister.
"These are the recreations of charity the holy mother told me of," said Salome, as she pa.s.sed out of the work-room and went back to her own sphere of duty.
On Christmas morning after matins, the Christmas gifts were distributed in every one of the asylums, and every inmate was made happy by an appropriate present.
At ten o"clock high ma.s.s was celebrated in the chapel of the convent, and all the sisterhood a.s.sembled in their screened choir.
Three priests in their sacerdotal robes, and a dozen boys in white surplices, were expected to serve at the altar. The chapel was profusely decorated with holly, and the shrines were dressed with flowers. The pews were filled with a congregation of a rather better social position than usually a.s.sembled there in the convent chapel.
The services had not yet commenced. Salome bent forward with all the interest and curiosity of a recluse, to look, for a moment, upon the strangers.
She gave but one glance through the screen, and then suddenly, with a low cry, she sank back upon her seat.
"What is the matter, my daughter? Are you ill?" inquired the mother-superior, in a whisper.
Salome lifted up a face ashen pale with dismay, and gasped:
"I have seen him! I have seen him! He is there--there in the congregation below!"
"Who?" inquired the abbess, in vague alarm.
"My husband?--yet, no; oh, Heaven! not my husband, but the Duke of Hereward!"
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE STRANGER IN THE CHAPEL.
"The Duke of Hereward in the congregation?" echoed the abbess, with a troubled look.
"Yes, there in the middle aisle, in the third pew from the altar,"
replied Salome, in trembling tones.