Page:The poor sisters of Nazareth, Meynell, 1889.djvu/36

30 things and an undaunted courage in great ones. The finances of the many houses are at times so low that the Mother-General confesses she has not dared to count the money in her drawer for fear of knowing for certain how little it was. And as to detail, it is only necessary to go through the house, to see the dinner preparing at the huge kitchener, and to watch the making of bed-quilts in the sewing-rooms, to understand how minutely the commonwealth of this great almshouse and convent is built up—or rather organised, for it is full of life in all parts.

The day begins at five o'clock for all. Though the Nazareth Nuns do not break their night by prayer, as do the Nuns in Orders having no active work, yet theirs are nevertheless "obedient slumbers." For one Sister, at least, in every twenty-four hours the day never ends at all, each one taking in rotation her turn for watching the wards at night, a duty which excuses her from nothing of the routine of the following day's labours or prayers. At five the Nuns, who rise from straw mattresses, gather in the chapel, where half-an-hour's meditation follows the morning prayer and precedes Mass. After Mass comes the Office, with other prayers, and thanksgiving, and not till then do the Sisters take their breakfast of bread and butter. At all their meals they fare like their poor, their food being principally the broken food of alms; and so severe are they in their abstinence from luxuries, that if game is sent to them as a