He printed one hasty kiss on the pale baby face of his daughter, and the next moment his heavy footsteps were echoing down the cloister. The Mother-Superior heard the outer door clang behind him and shut him out into the world again, and then, still clasping the child in her arms, she opened the envelope which the stranger had left. It contained English bank-notes for fifty pounds, and a card with the following name and address on it:
“Captain Mulgrave, R. N.,
“St. Edelfled’s, Presterby, Yorkshire.”
As she read the words, the child in her arms began to cry. At the sound of the little one’s voice, one of the many doors of the room softly opened; and secure from observation, as they thought, two or three of the sombrely clad sisters peeped curiously in.
But the good Mother’s eyes had grown keen with long watchfulness; she saw the white-framed faces as the door hurriedly closed.
“Sister Monica, Sister Theresa!” she called, but in no stern voice.
And the two nuns, trembling and abashed, but not sorry to be on the point of having their curiosity satisfied even at the cost of a rebuke, came softly in.
“We have a new little inmate,” said the Superior in a solemn voice, “a tender young creature whom God, for His own all-wise purposes, has chastened by two severe misfortunes, even at this early age. She is lame, and she has lost her earthly mother.”
A soft murmur of sympathy, low, yet so full that it seemed as if other voices from the dim background took it up and prolonged it, formed a sweet chorus to the kindly-spoken words. The Superior went on:
“I have promised the father of this child that, so far as by the help of God and His blessed saints we may, we will supply the place of the blessings she has lost. Will you help me, all of you? Yes, all of you.”
And again the soft murmur “Yes, yes,” of the two nuns before her was taken up by a dimly-seen chorus.