Having perhaps by this time excited some curiosity, we must endeavour to satisfy it.  We happened by mere chance, when spending an evening with a friend in a distant part of the town, to hear of this house and its tenants; and the doings and character of its inmates struck our mind as something so extraordinary, and in some respects so beautiful, that we resolved, if possible, to pay it a visit.  We did so a few days thereafter, under the conduct of a young friend, who kindly undertook to smooth away all difficulties in the way of our reception.  We can, therefore, give some account of the dingy house, with a tolerable assurance that, strange as the matter may appear, it is no more than true.

This dingy house is possessed by ten women, chiefly natives of France, who form a branch of a religious society of recent origin in that country, entitled, Les Petites Soeurs des Pauvres (Little Sisterhood for the Poor).  They have been in this house only for a few months, but are already fully engaged in the business to which they have devoted themselves—­which is the care and nurture of infirm and destitute old women.  The extraordinary thing is that the Sisters, though most of them are in their education and previous habits ladies, literally go about begging for the means of maintaining these poor people.  Everything is done, indeed, by begging; for on entering the sisterhood they renounce all earthly possessions.  They have begged the means of furnishing their house, and paying their rent, which is not an inconsiderable sum; they daily beg for the food, clothes, and cordials required for themselves and the objects of their charity.  What is even more singular, these ladies in all respects serve the old women, wash for them, cook for them, act as their nurses.  They treat themselves less kindly, for out of the broken victuals on which exclusively the house is supported, the old women always get the first selection, and the ladies only the remaining scraps.  It is altogether the most striking example of self-denial and self-devotion which has ever happened to fall under our attention in this country.

We were received in a faded old dining-room, by a Sister whose age surprised us, for she did not appear to be above five-and-twenty.  Her dress consisted of coarse black serge, and a linen cap, such as is worn by poor old women in the country.  She was evidently a well-educated and refined English lady, who, under a different impulse, might have very probably been indulging at this moment in the gaieties of Almacks.  With great courtesy, but without for a moment departing from the serious manner in which she had first addressed us, she conducted us through the house, and explained its various arrangements.  We were first shewn into a large hall in the rear, where we found about thirty little beds, only a few of which were occupied, the greater number of the inmates being able to sit up and move about the house.  Nothing could exceed