"Well--yes; it will not last for ever."
The old white-bearded men looked at each other and shook their heads,
"Oh women--women!"
"Take her away," said the Abbot to the Superior, laying the child in her arms. "Now do your duty, and the convent will give you a handsome reward."
The woman pressed the child compassionately to her bosom and was about to kiss him. But the Abbot checked her severely.
"You are never to kiss the child--do you hear? under the severest penalties; so that the boy may not be accustomed from his cradle to foolish caresses and wanton tenderness, for they are not seemly for a son and future servant of the Church. No woman's lips may ever touch him--not even those of his nurse."
The woman looked at the Abbot half-surprised and half-indignant.
"Oh! you poor, poor little child!" she murmured in her Rhætian dialect. "But--when no one sees us I will kiss you, all the same," she thought, and followed the Superior out of the room. The two old men looked at each other and again they shook their heads.
"Who would have thought of telling us, brother Florentinus, that at the end of our days we should be inspecting a wet-nurse?" said the Abbot laughing. "So it is, the unclean stream of life penetrates even the strongest convent walls and fouls the very foot of our sacred altars."
"It is the duty of the strong to help the weak," said Florentinus simply, "and such a humble labour of love disgraces no one, be he ever so high!"