Sister Theophila--in entering into religion the Protestant Sisters changed the names by which they were known in the world, according to the time-honoured tradition of an alien church--Sister Theophila, with the temperament of the recluse, had been thrust into this position of responsibility against her will. She performed her duties with scrupulous exactitude and pious resignation. Her ideal of life was the ascetic, and to this ideal the twenty orphans had to conform. She did not love the orphans.
Her staff consisted of one matron, a married woman of a much humbler class than her own. Possibly she might have loved the orphans had she not seen such a succession of them, and her own work been less harassing. Twenty female London orphans from disreputable homes are a tough handful. When you insist on their conformity with the ascetic ideal, they become tougher. They will not allow themselves to be loved.
“And ungrateful!” exclaimed the matron, one day when she was taking Risca round the institution. He had expressed to Sister Theophila his desire to visit it, and she, finding him entirely unsympathetic, had handed him over to her subordinate. “None of them know what gratitude is. As soon as they get out of here, they forget everything that has been done for them; and as for coming back to pay their respects, or writing a letter even, they never think of it.”
Kitchen, utensils, floors, walls, dormitory, orphans--all were spotlessly clean, the orphans sluiced and scrubbed from morning to night; but of things that might give a little hint of the joy of life there was no sign.
“This is the infirmary,” said the matron, with her hand on the door-knob.
They entered. An almost full-grown orphan, doing duty as nurse, rose from her task of plain sewing and bobbed a curtsy. The room was clean, comfortless, dark, and cold. Two pictures, prints of the Crucifixion and the Martyrdom of St. Stephen, hung on the walls. There were three narrow, hard beds, two of which were occupied. Some grapes on a chair beside one of them marked the patient in whom he was interested. John noticed angrily that some flowers which he had sent the day before had been confiscated.
“This is the gentleman who has been so kind to you,” said the matron.