Page:The poor sisters of Nazareth, Meynell, 1889.djvu/39

Rh fetch and carry for the house. And all this little population—more than poor, more than forlorn—is dependent upon the foresight, the skill, the vigilance, the constant tenderness of the Sisters of Nazareth. All these meals, all these garments, and many a little indulgence which sick infancy and extreme old age can scarcely live without, are gathered by the Nuns—humble labourers, voluntary mendicants, who follow gleaning in the wake of the pageant of luxury and wealth which goes "to and fro in the world, and up and down in it."

The forlorn women taken into the refuge are always called "the old ladies." It is one of the customs of the house. If there is one among them who has a face beautiful in form or expression, the Nuns do not fail to draw their visitors' attention to it; and some of these faces are in fact most beautiful and spiritual. Even those who are suffering are peaceful; those who are passing into eternity without pain look like old saints, pale not with the difficulty of common life and poverty, but with seventy years of prayers. Some other old ladies, who are dressed and grouped at work and talk in the long sitting-rooms, have a cheerfulness much more of this world. They have jokes on one another's little failings, much enjoyed by the subjects. To a very few, old age has restored a gaiety more pathetic; they have childish impulses, all in the direction of jollity. One expresses her satisfaction with the disposition of the world by which she has been landed in an almshouse, a pauper after a