All this Salome bestowed freely with many caresses and gentle, playful words.
Then the children sitting on the mats reached out their dolls at arm's-length, and screamed to have them noticed.
Salome made her way to these little sitters, while all the other children, clinging to her skirt, attended her, impeding her progress.
It was a great confusion.
The merry little sister laughed aloud.
"Now!" she said, gayly. "You are in their sphere, do you possess your soul in peace?"
"Something even better. My soul goes out to them, delighting in their innocent delight!" answered Salome.
And after she had patted their heads and praised their dolls, and pleased them all with loving notice, she followed her conductress from the children's play-room through the long rectangular passage that led to the nun's refectory.
The sisterhood, abstemious nearly all the days of the year, feasted on certain high holidays.
The Christmas dinner, laid for the young nuns in the refectory, would have satisfied the most fastidious epicure. But I doubt if any epicure could have enjoyed it half as well as did these abstemious young women, whose appetites were only let loose on certain high days and holidays.