e at any price and open their mouths to swallow, no
matter what food, like young birds still in the nest.

"Come nearer, gentlemen, and observe."

Yes, they are indeed sucking, these little cherubs! One of them, lying
close to the ground, squeezed up under the belly of the goat, is going
at it so heartily that you can hear the gurglings of the warm milk
descending, it would seem, even into the little limbs that kick with
satisfaction at the meal. The other, calmer, lying down indolently,
requires some little encouragement from his Auvergnoise attendant.

"Suck, will you suck then, you little rogue!" And at length, as though
he had suddenly come to a decision, he begins to drink with such avidity
that the woman leans over to him, surprised by this extraordinary
appetite, and exclaims laughing:

"Ah, the rascal, is he not cunning?--it is his thumb that he is sucking
instead of the goat."

The angel has hit on that expedient so that he may be left in peace.
The incident does not create a bad impression. M. de la Perriere is much
amused by this notion of the nurse that the child was trying to
take them all in. He leaves the nursery, delighted. "Positively
de-e-elighted," he repeats, nodding his head as they ascend the great
staircase with its echoing walls decorated with the horns of stags,
leading to the dormitory.

Very bright, very airy, is this vast room, running the whole length of
one side of the house, with numerous windows and cots, separated one
from another by a little distance, hung with fleecy white curtains like
clouds. Women go and come through the large arch in the centre, with
piles of linen on their arms, or keys in their hands, nurses with the
special duty of washing the babies.

Here too much has been attempted and the first impression of the
visitors is a bad one. All this whiteness of muslin, this polished
parquet, the brightness of the window-panes reflecting the sky sad at
beholding these things, seem to throw into bold relief the thinness, the
unhealthy pallor of these dying little ones, already the colour of their
shrouds. Alas! the oldest are only aged some six months, the youngest
barely a fortnight, and already there is in all these faces, these faces
in embryo, a disappointed expression, a scowling, worn look, a suffering
precocity visible in the numerous lines on those little bald foreheads,
cramped by linen caps edged with poor, narrow hospital lace. What are
they suffering? What disea