“Ask for Sister Denisa,” said madame, “and give her my name.”

The old woman shuffled out of the room, and madame, taking a small memorandum book from her pocket, began to study it.  Joyce sat looking about her with sharp, curious glances.  She wondered if these little sisters of the poor were barefoot beggar girls, who went about the streets with ragged shawls over their heads, and with baskets in their hands.  In her lively imagination she pictured row after row of such unfortunate children, marching out in the morning, empty-handed, and creeping back at night with the results of the day’s begging.  She did not like to ask about them, however, and, in a few minutes, her curiosity was satisfied without the use of questions.

Sister Denisa entered the room.  She was a beautiful woman, in the plain black habit and white head-dress of a sister of charity.

“Oh, they’re nuns!” exclaimed Joyce, in a disappointed whisper.  She had been hoping to see the beggar girls.  She had often passed the convent in St. Symphorien, and caught glimpses of the nuns, through the high barred gate.  She had wondered how it must feel to be shut away from the world; to see only the patient white faces of the other sisters, and to walk with meekly folded hands and downcast eyes always in the same old paths.

But Sister Denisa was different from the nuns that she had seen before.  Some inward joy seemed to shine through her beautiful face and make it radiant.  She laughed often, and there was a happy twinkle in her clear, gray eyes.  When she came into the room, she seemed to bring the outdoors with her, there was such sunshine and fresh air in the cheeriness of her greeting.

Madame had come to visit an old pensioner of hers who was in the home.  After a short conversation, Sister Denisa rose to lead the way to her.  “Would the little mademoiselle like to go through the house while madame is engaged?” asked the nun.

[Illustration:  Joyce and sister Denisa.]

“Oh, yes, thank you,” answered Joyce, who had found by this time that this home was not for little beggar girls, but for old men and women.  Joyce had known very few old people in her short life, except her Grandmother Ware; and this grandmother was one of those dear, sunny old souls, whom everybody loves to claim, whether they are in the family or not.  Some of Joyce’s happiest days had been spent in her grandmother’s country home, and the host of happy memories that she had stored up during those visits served to sweeten all her after life.

Old age, to Joyce, was associated with the most beautiful things that she had ever known:  the warmest hospitality, the tenderest love, the cheeriest home-life.  Strangers were in the old place now, and Grandmother Ware was no longer living, but, for her sake, Joyce held sacred every wrinkled face set round with snow-white hair, just as she looked tenderly on all old-fashioned flowers, because she had seen them first in her grandmother’s garden.