full. Sometimes, indeed, the floor is occupied with extra beds; for
the Sisters will never close their doors to any who apply, even
though they should have to abandon their own simple places of repose
to the new-comer, and stretch themselves on the bare floor.

We observed, in one of our visits, an old woman who was lying in one
of the beds of the hospital, in a kind of trance, neither sleeping
nor waking, apparently suffering no pain, but quite insensible to
everything which passed around her. Her complaint was that of
extreme old age, mere physical exhaustion. She had been for many
years a pensioner, fed and clothed by the Sisters: having outlived
all her relations, and having no friends in the world but them, she
had come in, as she said herself, 'to die in peace among them.' Not
far from her lay a girl, about sixteen or seventeen years of age,
whose extreme paleness, or rather marble whiteness, vied with the
snowy sheets which covered all but that lily face; and but for the
quivering of the little frill of her cap, and the slow movement of
her large blue eyes, it would have been difficult to believe that it
was not the alabaster figure of some saint that reposed there. The
superior looked kindly and sadly upon her, bent down, kissed her
pale forehead, and went on; and though the sufferer did not move or
speak, nor the feeble head turn, her large blue eyes followed the
reverend mother with an expression which was all its own--an
expression to be felt, deeply, intensely, but which cannot be
described. And who was she, that pale, silent girl? She was an
orphan, neglected by the world, betrayed and abandoned by one who
appeared the only _friend_ she had. Crushed in spirit, enfeebled by
want and misery, without a roof to shelter her young drooping head,
she had been found by the Sisters of Charity sitting alone, _her
eyes fixed on the river_. They took her in, clothed, fed, and warmed