"Our holy mother was going to send your dinner in here, Miss Levison; but I think it must be so dismal to eat one's dinner alone on Christmas day, so I pleaded to be allowed to plead with _you_ that you will come and dine with us young sisters at the second table, which is just as good as the first, I assure you, only it is served an hour later. Will you come? Say yes!" urged the merry and kind-hearted girl. "I will come, thank you; though I did too moodily decline the invitation of the abbess," said Salome, rising and placing her sleeping charge upon its little cot. "Now! what did I tell you about the children and the dolls! Look there!" gleefully exclaimed Sister Felecitie, pointing to a row of cots where about a dozen infants lay asleep, clasping their dolls tightly. "Yes, the tiny mimic mothers really do love their doll babies," Salome confessed with a smile. As they went out of the dormitory they passed into the children's day-room, where about twenty infants, from one to two years old, were at play--some sitting on mats or creeping on all fours, because they could not yet stand; some walking around chairs and holding on to support themselves; and some running here and there, in full possession of the use of their limbs. All rejoiced in the possession of little dolls. "Look at them!" exclaimed Sister Felecitie, gleefully. "We tried the least little ones with other toys: but, bless you, nothing else pleases them so well as dolls. We once tried the little yearlings with rattles, which we thought, it being noisy nuisances, would please them better; but save us! If any one doubts the doctrine of original sin and total depravity, they should have seen the three year-old babies fling down their rattles in a passion and go for the other babies' dolls, to seize and take them by force and violence; and the corresponding rage and resistance of the latter." "All that was very natural," said Salome, with a smile. "Oh, yes, natural, and perhaps something else too, beginning with a 'd.' They call children 'little angels.' Yes. I know they are, when they are sound asleep," exclaimed the sister, laughing. "If they are not angels, they have angels with them. I feel they have, for when I am in their sphere, I possess my soul in peace." As the young lady said this, the children noticed her presence for the first time, and all who could walk ran to her, clustered around her and thrust their dolls upon her, for inspection and approval. All this Salome bestowed freely with many caresses and gentle, playful words. Then the children sitting on the mats reached out their dolls at arm's-length, and screamed to have them noticed. Salome made her way to these little sitters, while all the other children, clinging to her skirt, attended her, impeding her progress. It was a great confusion. The merry little sister laughed aloud. "Now!" she said, gayly. "You are in their sphere, do you possess your soul in peace?"