OF
DRAWN BY
GEORGE LAMBERT;
WRITTEN BY
ALICE MEYNELL;
PUBLISHED BY
BURNS & OATES, Limited.
LONDON: 28 ORCHARD STREET, W., and 63 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
And at NEW YORK.
TO
MY LITTLE DAUGHTER,
Palace Court, London, W.
1889.
AZARETH HOUSE, with all the sanctity, shows nothing of the mystery, of the cloister. Reticence there must be, reserve, and silence as to the spiritual experience of these consecrated Sisters, but it is never made apparent. The note of the place is simply—simplicity; divine quality, which not every child possesses, and the lack of which makes middle life in the world chiefly an uncharming passage from the probable simplicity of childhood to the possible simplicity of old age and the certain simplicity of death. That Nuns are simple is one of their ways of making amends for the pranks of the world. And these Nuns are the simplest of the simple—in their dealings with their poor, with the "extern," and even with the press! If the newspaper can indirectly help them to feed their flock, the newspaper may publish their necessities and describe their enterprises; and their personal love of complete seclusion is sacrificed for the sake of charity as sweetly and undemonstratively as every other wish or thought that is touched with self.
Every one who goes to Nazareth House, therefore, is met with a welcome. The pilgrimage thither leads us past the 
The Choir. plate-glass face and Georgian background of Kensington to the beginnings of one of the shabbiest of those supplementary towns that straggle around London. If Hammersmith has nothing else to recommend it, it is certainly a good recruiting ground for Nazareth House. Misery must needs lurk in the nooks and corners 
The Acolyte.of the place, for its comparative prosperities are significant of difficult living and a disheartened postponement of pauperism. The placarded groceries, the fruit languid and damp, and the dusky doubtful meat—for the acquisition of this the serried population goes daily to its work, when work is happily to be had. But all this shabby Hammersmith is further out of town, towards the river. About Nazareth House there is no squalor, but open space, with free horizon and fresh air. The large feverishly red buildings of St. Paul's School are close by, and the little Nazareth girls can watch 
THE NOVICES' ORATORY.