few old people in her short life, except her
Grandmother Ware; and this grandmother was one of those dear, sunny old
souls, whom everybody loves to claim, whether they are in the family or
not. Some of Joyce's happiest days had been spent in her grandmother's
country home, and the host of happy memories that she had stored up
during those visits served to sweeten all her after life.

Old age, to Joyce, was associated with the most beautiful things that
she had ever known: the warmest hospitality, the tenderest love, the
cheeriest home-life. Strangers were in the old place now, and
Grandmother Ware was no longer living, but, for her sake, Joyce held
sacred every wrinkled face set round with snow-white hair, just as she
looked tenderly on all old-fashioned flowers, because she had seen them
first in her grandmother's garden.

Sister Denisa led the way into a large, sunny room, and Joyce looked
around eagerly. It was crowded with old men. Some were sitting idly on
the benches around the walls, or dozing in chairs near the stove. Some
smoked, some gathered around the tables where games of checkers and
chess were going on; some gazed listlessly out of the windows. It was
good to see how dull faces brightened, as Sister Denisa passed by with a
smile for this group, a cheery word for the next. She stopped to brush
the hair back from the forehead of an old paralytic, and pushed another
man gently aside, when he blocked the way, with such a sweet-voiced
"Pardon, little father," that it was like a caress. One white-haired old
fellow, in his second childhood, reached out and caught at her dress, as
she passed by.

Crossing a porch where were more old men sitting sadly alone, or walking
sociably up and down in the sunshine, Sister Denisa passed along a court
and held the door open for Joyce to enter another large room.

"Here is the rest of our family," she said. "A large one, is it not? Two
hundred poor old people that nobody wants, and nobody cares what
becomes of."

Joyce looked around the room and saw on every hand old age that had
nothing beautiful, nothing attractive. "Were they beggars when they were
little?" she asked.

"No, indeed," answered the nun. "That is the saddest part of it to me.
Nearly all these poor creatures you see here once had happy homes of
their own. That pitiful old body over by the stove, shaking with palsy,
was once a gay, rich countess; the invalid whom madame visits was a
marquise. It would br