condemned to hard word in the big laundry and kitchen. "As we have no servants," said the nun, "the old women must work." To enter a charitable institution over sixty, having worked hard all one's life, in order to stand over a wash-tub, seems a dubious advantage. A very devout Catholic friend, with whom I discussed this fact, has told me of a lasting grievance she has against these Little Sisters of the Poor. A broken-down gentle old washerwoman, near seventy, in whom she took an interest, was recommended to them, a friend paying four hundred francs to the asylum. The nuns are not supposed to take money, but it is never refused, and in this case the generous donor meant to secure a little extra comfort for the hard-worked old soul. She was put in there to rest from the wash-tub, but the excellent nuns understood it differently, and placed her at once before it. Within a year she died from overwork. Whenever you penetrate below the surface of conventual charities, they will always be found profitable for the order and never for the individual. The hearts of nuns seem implacably steeled against human suffering, steeled against pity and generosity. They are among the worst paymasters and taskmasters in the world, on the pretext that, being hard to themselves, nobody has the right to expect that they shall be soft to others.
