The portress who answered it found there a basket containing an infant a few weeks old.  It was cleanly dressed and warmly wrapped up in flannel; but it had no scrap of writing, no name, nor mark upon its clothing by which it might ever be identified.

The portress took it into the dormitory, where it was tenderly received and cared for by the sisters on duty there.

The case was too common a one to excite more than a passing interest.

On the next day after the arrival of the infant, it happened that the mother-superior brought Salome there on her first visit, when the misery of the motherless and forsaken infant so moved the sympathies of the young lady that she immediately took it to her own bosom.

Subsequently, since she had devoted herself to the care of these deserted babies, she took an especial interest in this youngest and most helpless of their number.

She named it Marie Perdue, and stood godmother at its baptism.

It lay in her arms often during the day, and slept at her bosom during the night.  It had grown to know its nurse, and to recognize her presence and caresses by those soft, low sounds, half cooing and half complaining, with which very young babes first try to utter their emotions or their wants.

Now, as she took little Marie Perdue from the cot, the child greeted her with sweet smiles and soft coos, and nestled lovingly to her bosom.  And peace deepened in Salome’s heart.

She sat down in a low nursing-chair, fed the child with warm milk and water until it was satisfied, and then rocked it and sang to it in a low, melodious voice, until it fell asleep.

She was still rocking and singing when the rosy-cheeked and cheery young Sister Felecitie came in.

“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.