Page:The poor sisters of Nazareth, Meynell, 1889.djvu/43

Rh all that can be devised or bought, can show such peace and pleasure. Ailing young babies sit up, propped in their cots, and look on with their pale faces at the games of the children, perfectly content. There seems to be no quarrelling. On one visit only did we hear a single cry—the most unwonted of sounds in this poor orphanage. There had been a tumble. One round child had rolled over another. A Sister ran to the rescue, and the cry was hushed. The mob of little ones troop to the door to greet us, and their joyful noise had gone out to meet us a long way down the corridor. They pause in their playing and dancing down the long gay room, and run forward with a confidence that has an infinite significance. Children that do so have never been snubbed or discouraged or suppressed, or oppressed by the sadness of minds less innocent than theirs. Who, in the world, has not had remorse for inflicting this oppression, if no other? Here simplicity is nursed and taught by simplicity. And the less sweet ways of discipline which less wise women can hardly do without, if they have a brood of four or five to keep in partial subordination, seem to be quite unnecessary here, where a hundred or two have to be kept in the absolute order without which such a mob would fall into a state of infantile anarchy and nihilism. And the listlessness common to luxurious children outside, and the other kind of apathy which belongs to the poor, are unknown here. There is not a look to show ennui or restlessness or discontent. The little