An enchanting smile lit up her grave face, and she fondled them; she spoke little chaffing words which Kitty, ignorant though she was of Chinese, could tell were like caresses.
She shuddered a little, for in their uniform dress, sallow-skinned, stunted, with their flat noses, they looked to her hardly human.
They were repulsive.
But the Mother Superior stood among them like Charity itself.
When she wished to leave the room they would not let her go, but clung to her, so that, with smiling expostulations, she had to use a gentle force to free herself.
They at all events found nothing terrifying in this great lady.
"You know of course," she said, as they walked along another corridor, "that they are only orphans in the sense that their parents have wished to be rid of them.
We give them a few cash for every child that is brought in, otherwise they will not take the trouble, but do away with them." She turned to the Sister. "Have any come to-day?" she asked.
"Four."
"Now, with the cholera, they are more than ever anxious not to be burdened with useless girls."
She showed Kitty the dormitories and then they passed a door on which was painted the word infirmerie.
Kitty heard groans and loud cries and sounds as though beings not human were in pain.
"I will not show you the infirmary," said the Mother Superior in her placid tones. "It is not a sight that one would wish to see." A thought struck her. "I wonder if Dr. Fane is there?"
She looked interrogatively at the Sister and she, with her merry smile, opened the door and slipped in.
Kitty shrank back as the open door allowed her to hear more horribly the tumult within.
Sister St Joseph came back.
"No, he has been and will not be back again till later."
"What about number six?"
"Pauvre gar #231;on, he's dead."
The Mother Superior crossed herself and her lips moved in a short and silent prayer.
They passed by a courtyard and Kitty's eyes fell upon two long shapes that lay side by side on the ground covered with a piece of blue cotton.
The Superior turned to Waddington.
"We are so short of beds that we have to put two patients in one and the moment a sick man dies he must be bundled out in order to make room for another." But she gave Kitty a smile. "Now we will show you our chapel.
We are very proud of it.
One of our friends in France sent us a little while ago a life-size statue of the Blessed Virgin."
XLIH
THE chapel was no more than a long low room with whitewashed walls and rows of deal benches; at the end was the altar on which stood the image; it was in plaster of Paris* painted in crude colours; it was very bright and new and garish.
Behind it was a picture in oils of the Crucifixion with the two Marys at the foot of the Cross in extravagant attitudes of grief.
The drawing was bad and the dark pigments were put on with an eye that knew nothing of the beauty of colour.
Around the walls were the Stations of the Cross painted by the same unfortunate hand.
The chapel was hideous and vulgar.
The nuns on entering knelt down to say a prayer and then, rising, the Mother Superior began once more to chat with Kitty.
"Everything that can be broken is broken when it comes here, but the statue presented to us by our benefactor came from Paris without so much as the smallest chip.
There is no doubt that it was a miracle."
Waddington's malicious eyes gleamed, but he held his tongue.
"The altarpiece and the Stations of the Cross were painted by one of our Sisters, Soeur St Anselme." The Mother Superior crossed herself. "She was a real artist.
Unfortunately, she fell a victim to the epidemic.
Do you not think that they are very beautiful?"
Kitty faltered an affirmative.
On the altar were bunches of paper flowers and the candlesticks were distract-ingly ornate.
"We have the privilege of keeping here the Blessed Sacrament."
"Yes?" said Kitty, not understanding.
"It has been a great comfort to us during this time of so terrible trouble."
They left the chapel and retraced their steps to the parlour in which they had first sat.
"Would you like to see the babies that came in this morning before you go?"
"Very much," said Kitty.
The Mother Superior led them into a tiny room on the other side of the passage.
On a table, under a cloth, there was a singular wriggling.
The Sister drew back the cloth and displayed four tiny, naked infants.
They were very red and they made funny restless movements with their arms and legs; their quaint little Chinese faces were screwed up into strange grimaces.