Page:The poor sisters of Nazareth, Meynell, 1889.djvu/44

38 ones are full of interest. About a lady visitor they will cluster eagerly, to look at her ornaments, to open her parasol, and gather in a group of sweet faces under its shadow; to clasp her knees and win her to a romp with them on the floor. Each child is carefully dressed—not only in clean garments, but in pretty ones. There is no frock that is not gracefully made and gaily trimmed. The infinite variety of the odds and ends has a charming effect as regards the children, whose colouring has been studiously suited, and who have that look of having been separately and individually cared for which takes something from the melancholy of the sight of an orphan crowd. The White Lady who rose nightly from her grave, in the German legend, to wash and comb her little children, ill tended after her death, need not walk the wards of Nazareth House. The dead-and-gone mothers whose little ones are there can rest in peace.

From the Incurable Children's Ward the sounds are stiller. In several cases there is an eternal silence, for not a few are dumb; but more are blind. One poor girl is shut away from all messages from her kind, except the message which comes through the Sister's caressing hand on her shoulder. Another was rescued from some dark hole in which her deformed and blighted face had been hidden away. Another, born without arms—a sweet-faced rosy girl—will never be able to labour in the world to which her young health and spirits would lead her;