Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/216

 being for the most part ill or delicate, were less uproarious in their pleasure than would have been the case had all been in full health. The most uproarious of all was a self-assertive mite, who could just toddle and tumble about alone, and whose organ of acquisitiveness was decidedly large, for she wanted all she saw, and screamed lustily when she did not get it.

Now began to come in the physicians connected with the hospital, and the ladies belonging to them; and it was pretty and eloquent to see how the faces of the children lightened up as they entered, some of the bolder indeed running across the floor for a kindly word or look; and one pretty babe holding up her mouth to be kissed, as confidingly as if she had been at home. One of the ladies, the wife of one of the chief physicians, a young mother herself, seemed to be a veritable centre of happiness wherever she moved; and beautiful as she is, she never looked more lovely than when talking to these poor little ones, playing with the babies, and soothing the sick and fractious, with just as much tenderness and dear maternal sympathy as if she had been in her own nursery at home. God bless her for her good work in the "Ralli," so lovingly and faithfully performed!

The ward was now quite full. The toys were hung, the blinds drawn down, the wax tapers and coloured gelatine lamps were lighted, and the full glories of the tree were revealed. The place was all alive with sickly little creatures, with pale faces and large bright eyes, brighter and larger from illness, clustering nearer and nearer to the magic garden in the centre. For not only the children in the Ralli ward itself, but all the children in the hospital who could be taken from bed, and such of the out-patients as were brought, were admitted to the festival. Some invalid women came tottering in from the nearer wards, one looking like an Orphic ghost, with only a white pinched face seen from the folds of the blanket she had wrapped round her; a few douce, fatherly, invalid men gathered quietly at the end of the room, near the door; grown girls and boys, all pale and wan, and feeble yet, poor young things! were also admitted—all to see the tree, and all apparently as well pleased with the joy of the children as if it had been their own especial treat. And then the names of the fortunate possessors of certain lovely toys were called, and the gentle widow of the founder of the ward handed them to their owners as they came forward to receive them. All did not come or answer to their names. A certain Tommy was called for loudly, once or twice, in vain, when a voice at last shouted out, "In bed in the Albert;" which was reason enough why poor Tommy should not receive his New Year's gift to-day, from the hands of the foundress herself. But his toy, and all the other toys and treasures apportioned to the absentees were set aside, to be given when the fitting time came. After this the outsiders and the little ones had their innings, without the ultimate neglect or overlooking of a single child.

One small woman, herself little more than a baby, lugged a huge baby in her arms, to which, because a baby, and now specially fine and fat owing to the good nursing of the ward, more than one distributor had given something; but the miniature nurse had been left out, when the dear young wife and mother of whom I have spoken before—how I should like to give her name!—spied out the truth, and asked the Moloch-bearer if she herself had had anything? "No, ma'am," said the child, with a beaming face; "I have baby." "Well, then, because you are such a good little nurse you shall have this," said the lady, giving her a divine doll, with real hair, and a glorified robe of muslin and ribbon.

I would not have exchanged that child's intense happiness at that moment for the coronation day of a queen.

The physicians, being only men, got into great coils at times, and were overwhelmed with their responsibilities. I saw one going about helplessly with another divine doll, which he did not know what to do with—it was too responsible a thing to decide, unassisted, who should have it; so at last he gave it to one of the Sisters, and cleared his conscience. Another had a lovely horse and cart in tin, which he was going to bestow on a girl baby, until quietly reminded that it was fitter for a boy who could run alone and drag the cart after him. These were the frailties of man's nature, and occasions on which the superior intelligence of woman triumphed.

The children were wonderfully well behaved. The word is no exaggeration. It would have been impossible to find better manners in any West-end drawing-room. There was no snatching, no asking, no crying. When one tiny philosopher of three saw her baby sister with a silver cracker, which it was frantically desirous of stuffing into its mouth on the instant, all she said,