with its pretty, pink quilt. At one end was an altar, most modest in its appointments, consisting of hardly more than a crucifix and a vase of flowers upon the mantel. As we entered the room, the sister stood before it with a circle of white caps and blue checked aprons around her, a circle of little clasped hands, of upturned eyes and lisping lips, repeating what might have been, "Now I lay me," for anything we knew. Our entrance brought wandering eyes and thoughts. At the opposite end of the room, a wide, long window swung open, revealing a pleasant garden down below, all green and blossoming, with an image of the Virgin half hid among the vines. Cool, and fresh, and green it seemed after the glare of the hot streets, a pleasant picture for the baby eyes. Out from this window the little feet could trot upon the guarded roof of a piazza. A little chair, a broken doll, and limbless horse here were familiar objects to the eyes of the mothers in our party, and when two children seized upon one block with a determination which threatened a breach of the peace, we were convinced that even baby nature was the same the world over. Supper time came, and the children were gathered together in a small room, before the drollest little table imaginable--a kind of elongated doughnut, raised a foot from the floor, with a circular seat around it. All the little outer shells of blue check were slipped on, all the little fat bodies lifted over and set into their places, to roll off, or about, at will. A grace was said, to us, I think, since all the little eyes turned towards us, and a plate of oatmeal porridge put before each one. Some ate with a relish, and a painful search over the face with a spoon for the open, waiting mouth; some leaned back to stare at the company; and others persisted in dipping into the dish of their next neighbor. One little thing, hardly more than a year old, drew down the corners of her mouth in a portentous manner, when the motherly one beside her, of the advanced age of three years, perhaps, rapped on the table with her spoon, and patted the doleful little face, smiling all the while, until she actually drew out smiles in return. The dear little mother! An attendant with a homely face, creased into all manner of good-natured lines, resolved herself into the old woman who lived in a shoe, holding two babies and the porridge dish in her lap, balancing one upon the end of the low bench beside her, while two or three more stood at her knee, clinging to her apron. It was like a nest of open-mouthed birdlings. Blessings on the babies, and those, whether of our faith or not, who teach and care for them, we thought, as we came away. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me," said the Master.