Salome soon followed her, and joined the procession of nuns to the chapel.
As soon as she took her seat in the choir, she looked through the screen over the congregation below, to see if the strangers were in the chapel; but she saw them not.
When the vesper service was over, she took her tea with the nuns in their refectory; and then returned to the play-room in the Infants' Asylum.
The nurses were engaged in giving the little ones their supper, and putting them to bed.
Salome took up her own little Marie Perdue, to undress her.
As she divested the child of her little slip, something rolled out of its bosom and dropped upon the floor.
One of the nurses picked it up and handed it to Salome.
It was a small, hard substance, wrapped in tissue paper.
Salome unrolled it and found a ring, set with a large solitaire diamond. With a cry of surprise and pain, she recognized the jewel. It was her late father's ring! While she gazed upon it in a trance of wonder, the paper in which it had been wrapped, caught by a breeze from the open window, fluttered under her eyes. She saw that there was writing on the paper, and she took it up and read it.
"The ring must be sold for the benefit of the child and of the house that has protected her. She must be educated to become a nun."