"I am needed up-stairs," said Sister Denisa, turning to Joyce. "Will you
come up and see the sleeping-rooms?"

They went up the freshly scrubbed steps to a great dormitory, where,
against the bare walls, stood long rows of narrow cots. They were all
empty, except one at the farthest end, where an old woman lay with her
handkerchief across her eyes.

"Poor old Number Thirty-one!" said Sister Denisa. "She seems to feel her
unhappy position more than any one in the house. The most of them are
thankful for mere bodily comfort,--satisfied with food and shelter and
warmth; but she is continually pining for her old home surroundings.
Will you not come and speak to her in English? She married a countryman
of yours, and lived over thirty years in America. She speaks of that
time as the happiest in her life. I am sure that you can give her a
great deal of pleasure."

"Is she ill?" said Joyce, timidly drawing back as the nun started across
the room.

"No, I think not," was the answer. "She says she can't bear to be herded
in one room with all those poor creatures, like a flock of sheep, with
nothing to do but wait for death. She has always been accustomed to
having a room of her own, so that her greatest trial is in having no
privacy. She must eat, sleep, and live with a hundred other old women
always around her. She comes up here to bed whenever she can find the
slightest ache for an excuse, just to be by herself. I wish that we
could give her a little spot that she could call her own, and shut the
door on, and feel alone. But it cannot be," she added, with a sigh. "It
taxes our strength to the utmost to give them all even a bare home."