Father Dan, who was still wearing his knitted muffler, bowed very low to this lady, calling her the Reverend Mother Magdalene, and she answered him in English but with a funny sound which I afterwards knew to be a foreign accent.

I remember that I thought she was very beautiful, nearly as beautiful as my mother, and when Father Dan told me to kiss her hand I did so, and then she put me to sit in a chair and looked at me.

“What is her age?” she asked, whereupon Father Dan said he thought I would be eight that month, which was right, being October.

“Small, isn’t she?” said the lady, and then Father Dan said something about poor mamma which I cannot remember.

After that they talked about other things, and I looked at the pictures on the walls—­pictures of Saints and Popes and, above all, a picture of Jesus with His heart open in His bosom.

“The child will be hungry,” said the lady.  “She must have something to eat before she goes to bed—­the other children have gone already.”

Then she rang a hand-bell, and when the first lady came back she said: 

“Ask Sister Angela to come to me immediately.”

A few minutes later Sister Angela came into the room, and she was quite young, almost a girl, with such a sweet sad face that I loved her instantly.

“This is little Mary O’Neill.  Take her to the Refectory and give her whatever she wants, and don’t leave her until she is quiet and comfortable.”

“Very well, Mother,” said Sister Angela, and taking my hand she whispered:  “Come, Mary, you look tired.”

I rose to go with her, but at the same moment Father Dan rose too, and I heard him say he must lose no time in finding an hotel, for his Bishop had given him only one day to remain in Rome, and he had to catch an early train home the following morning.

This fell on me like a thunderbolt.  I hardly know what I had led myself to expect, but certainly the idea of being left alone in Rome had never once occurred to me.

My little heart was fluttering, and dropping the Sister’s hand I stepped back and took Father Dan’s and said: 

“You are not going to leave your little Mary are you, Father?”

It was harder for the dear Father than for me, for I remember that, fearfully flurried, he stammered in a thick voice something about the Reverend Mother taking good care of me, and how he was sure to come back at Christmas, according to my father’s faithful promise, to take me home for the holidays.

After that Sister Angela led me, sniffing a little still, to the Refectory, which was a large, echoing room, with rows of plain deal tables and forms, ranged in front of a reading desk that had another and much larger picture of the Sacred Heart on the wall above it.  Only one gasjet was burning, and I sat under it to eat my supper, and after I had taken a basin of soup I felt more comforted.