"When do you get the newspapers here?" inquired Halkett.
"After lunch, usually. The Petit Journal d'Ausone arrives then. Nobody bothers with any Paris papers. But I think I shall subscribe, now.... There's the school, just ahead."
It was a modern and very plain two-storied building of stone and white stucco, covered with new red tiles. A few youthful vines were beginning to climb gratefully toward the lower window sills; young linden trees shaded it. A hum, like the low, incessant murmur of a hive, warned them as they approached that the children were reciting in unison; and they halted at the open door.
Inside the big, clean room, the furniture of which was a stove and a score or more of desks, two dozen little girls, neatly but very poorly dressed, stood beside their desks reciting. On a larger desk stood a glass full of flowers which Halkett recognized; and beside this desk, slenderly erect, he saw Sister Eila, facing the children, her white hands linked behind her back.
Seated behind the same desk was another Sister—a buxom one with the bright, clear coloring of a healthy peasant—more brilliant, even, for the white wimple, collarette, and wide-winged headdress which seemed to accent the almost riotous tint of physical health.
The childish singsong presently ceased; Sister Eila turned pensively, took a step or two, lifted her eyes, and beheld Halkett and Warner at the doorway.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Please come in, Messieurs. I have been wondering whether Mr. Warner would bring you before luncheon.... Sister Félicité, this is Monsieur Halkett, who so amiably aided me to gather my bouquet this morning."
Sister Félicité became all animation and vigor; she was cordial to Halkett, greeted Warner with the smiling confidence of long acquaintance.
It lacked only a few minutes to noon, and so lessons were suspended, and the children put through one or two drills for Halkett's benefit.
Out in the kitchen a good, nourishing broth was simmering for them, and Sister Eila slipped away during the brief exhibition to prepare twenty-four bowls and spoons and tartines for these ever-hungry little children of the poor, orphaned for the most part, or deserted, or having parents too poor to feed them.