"Come, let us go now,--and leave these
bridal flowers where the bride wishes them to be,--at the foot of
the Cross, as a symbol of her husband's service! Let us go,--the
Cardinal has need of rest."
They returned to their respective homes,--Aubrey and his wife to a
little tenement house they had taken for a few weeks in the district
in order that Sylvie might be able to see and to study for herself
the sad and bitter lives of those who from birth to death are
deprived of all the natural joys of happy and wholesome existence,--
whose children are born and bred up in crime,--where girls are
depraved and ruined before they are in their teens,--and where
nothing of God is ever taught beyond that He is a Being who punishes
the wicked and rewards the good,--and where in the general apathy of
utter wretchedness, people decide that unless there is something
given them in this world to be good for, they would rather be bad
like the rest of the folks they see about them. The Cardinal and
Manuel dwelt in rooms not very far away, and every day and every
hour almost was occupied by them in going among these poor,
helpless, hopeless ones of the world, bringing them comfort and aid
and sympathy. Wherever Manuel went, there brightness followed; the
sick were healed, the starving were fed, the lonely and desolate
were strengthened and encouraged, and the people who knew no more of
the Cardinal than that "he was a priest of some sort or other,"
began to watch eagerly for the appearance of the Cardinal's
foundling, "the child that seemed to love them," as they described
him,--and to long for even a passing glimpse of the fair face, the
steadfast blue eyes, the tender smile, of one before whom all rough
words were silenced--all weeping stilled.
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