"Ah," she cried, "you speak the language that my husband taught me to love, and the tongue my little children lisped; but they are all dead now, and I've come back to my native land to find no home but the one that charity provides." Her words ended in a wail, and she sank back on her pillow.

"And this is my birthday," she went on.

"Seventy-three years old, and a pauper, cast out to the care of strangers." The tears ran down her wrinkled cheeks, and her mouth trembled pitifully.

Joyce was distressed; she looked around for Sister Denisa, but saw that they were alone, they two, in the great bare dormitory, with its long rows of narrow white cots.

The child felt utterly helpless to speak a word of comfort, although she was so sorry for the poor lonely old creature that she began to cry softly to herself.