Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/41

Rh It was the "Little Ones" room I found myself in. Something in the atmosphere of it brought a feeling of love and holiness into my heart. There was the little figure of the Child Jesus on a little shrine at the end of the room with flowers picked by the children themselves from their own little gardens and put lovingly and proudly in the vases. And there in another niche was a model of Lourdes, made with grey paper rocks, the chapel on the heights and down below the wonderful pool where the Miracles took place. On the window-sill were glass preserving-bottles filled with sawdust in which beans had been placed and watched with interest as they burst their shells and gradually shot up into green leaf above. There were wonderful things in that room. Even a shelf of dolls—the babies of these babies whose childhood was kept sweet and sheltered.

"I love little Marie," I said to Sister Bridget one day, "She's a little mischief I know, but she looks so sweet."

"She's full of life," said Sister. "It's wonderful though, how that child's improved. She was naughty! but you know it's better that the naughtiness should come out of them while they're little. You feel it's there and it's got to come out sometime and if they show it when they're little they've got rid of it once and for all."

And there sat Marie with her rose-bud mouth screwed into a little demure line and her blue eyes under their straight fringe doing their best not to twinkle with mischief.

Then, one day, I don't know why, the little nun said she wanted to give me a rosary. I protested, laughing and saying "It's no use you know. Nothing would ever make me turn."

I shook my head at her but she brought forward the little string of metal beads, laughing too, but persistent.

"I will give you a little book to read that will tell you all about it," she said.

She was so persistent and I knew her heart was so much in religion that I took it.

"It has two beads short, but that will not matter. It has many indulgences—oh, many indulgences."

I took it not in the least understanding what "indulgences" might mean, protesting again "Now you know it's no use."

But she said, "It's on my conscience—you know Miss Burston is a convert."

I went home with my little rosary not meaning to make use of it in the way she thought and wished, but pleased to have it—I can hardly tell why—some sort of feeling of a child with a new toy—a feeling I smiled at in myself. I used to hold it up and look at the two little rows of beads with its hanging cross and let the light play on it and the thoughts come. It suggested convents and churches and