!
_But destitute infancy!_ Oh! look here! look here! Can anything on
earth be so pathetic as this?

"They are so innocent; they have not brought their evils on themselves.
They are so helpless! They have not even words to tell their pain, or ask
for relief! Mother! You said that I might choose my work! I have chosen
it. It is here. And I begin it from this moment," said Salome.

And she threw off her hat and cloak, and drew her gloves and cast them
all on a chair, and went and took up the wailing infant from the cot.

The abbess sat down and watched her.

She soothed the baby's plaints upon her bosom as she walked it, up and
down the floor, singing a sweet, nursery song in a low and tender voice,
until it fell asleep. Then she came and laid it sleeping on its cot.

"My dear daughter," said the abbess, gravely, "before you select this
field of duty, I must warn you that it is, and it _must needs_ be,
of all charitable administrations, the most laborious and trying."

"It may be so; but it is also the most divine," said Salome, with a
grave, sweet smile. "Listen, dear mother. I know not how it is, but--with
all its pathos--the sphere of this room is heavenly. And while I held
that baby to my bosom and soothed it to sleep, its little, soft form
seemed to draw all the fever and soreness from my own aching heart as
well. Here is my earthly work, dear mother! Nay, rather, here is my
heavenly mission and consolation. Leave me here."

The mother-superior took the votaress at her word, and left her then and
there.

In the course of the same day a small closet, communicating with the
infants' dormitory, was fitted up as a sleeping berth for Salome, and her
few personal effects were conveyed from the convent and arranged within
her new dwelling.

Salome had not mistaken her vocation. To serve these forsaken and
suffering children was to her a labor of love; to relieve them, a work
of joy.

She never left her charge, except to go to chapel, or to her meals, which
she took at the nuns' table, in their refectory.

On Christmas Eve, as she returned from dinner, Sister Francoise invited
her to look into the work-room and see the Christmas presents in process
of preparation.

To please the kind sister, she followed her into a long hall, furnished
with little tables, at each of which sat two or three of the nuns at
work.

As Salome, with her conductor, walked down the room, she saw that on one
table was a pile of childre