"You take me to
places that I have never seen before. What place is this?" She stooped
to read the inscription on the door-plate:
"LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR."
Before her question could be answered, the door was opened by a wrinkled
old woman, in a nodding white cap, who led them into a reception-room at
the end of the hall.
"Ask for Sister Denisa," said madame, "and give her my name."
The old woman shuffled out of the room, and madame, taking a small
memorandum book from her pocket, began to study it. Joyce sat looking
about her with sharp, curious glances. She wondered if these little
sisters of the poor were barefoot beggar girls, who went about the
streets with ragged shawls over their heads, and with baskets in their
hands. In her lively imagination she pictured row after row of such
unfortunate children, marching out in the morning, empty-handed, and
creeping back at night with the results of the day's begging. She did
not like to ask about them, however, and, in a few minutes, her
curiosity was satisfied without the use of questions.
Sister Denisa entered the room. She was a beautiful woman, in the plain
black habit and white head-dress of a sister of charity.
"Oh, they're nuns!" exclaimed Joyce, in a disappointed whisper. She had
been hoping to see the beggar girls.
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