rounds
of our asylums and schools, and see for yourself destitute old age,
destitute childhood and abandoned infancy; and you may choose your work
among these poor, needy, helpless ones," said the abbess, gravely.

"And are laborers wanted in that vineyard, mother?"

"Always."

"Then here am I, for one, poor one. I am longing to go to work."

"At first your work shall be a very bright and pleasant labor, dear
child. This is the joyous week of preparation for the glad, Christmas
festival. This week we are all, young and old, engaged in the delightful
recreations of charity. Our Lord Himself, who, in His Divine benignity,
blessed the marriage feast of Cana with a miracle, smiles on our
recreations of charity, which with us just now consist in the preparation
of Christmas gifts to gladden the hearts of our poor these Christmas
times. To-morrow, if you please, I will take you to our work-rooms, where
you may choose your own task."

"Oh, how willingly I will do that!" said Salome, earnestly.

A bell had been ringing for a few moments; and so the abbess arose and
said:

"That is the dinner-bell. You promised to join us in the refectory, and
I think it is best you should do so, my daughter."

"I will follow your counsels in everything, holy mother," answered
Salome, sweetly, as she arose and put her hand on the offered arm of her
friend.

The abbess led her protegee down a long passage and deep flights of
stairs to the refectory, where, at each side of a very long table,
running down the length of the room, stood about fifty nuns waiting for
their mother-superior.

The abbess gave her guest a seat next to her own, then crossed herself
and sat down.

The nuns all made the sign of the cross upon their breasts, and seated
themselves at the table.

This was the first occasion upon which Salome sat down at the nuns'
table; but it was not the last, for from this day she regularly appeared
there, and, though she was given to frequent and violent fits of weeping,
her health and spirits steadily improved under the regimen of the abbess.

On Monday morning the lady-superior took Salome through all the asylums
on the east side of the convent.

They went first into the aged men's home, where, in a large, clean,
well-warmed and well-lighted hall, furnished with arm-chairs, tables, and
many plain and cheap conveniences, were gathered about thirty gray-haired
or bald-headed patriarchs, whose ages ranged from seventy to a hu