Her Royal Lover: A Novel — page 286: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

278 HER ROYAL LOVER. cluded from this austere asylum; an iron bedstead, a stool, a table, and washstand; this is all that the chamber comprises in which Najeska Ivanowna must pass the days of her affliction. Her toilet ccmpleted, she entered the cold and damp corridor which led to the refectory. This vast hall, of a truly lugubrious aspect, was already filled with nuns and pupils. In traversing the corridor which precedes the entrance to it, Madame de Mine- leko encountered her dear babies, who, in their nurse’s arms, were setting out forashort but hy- giene promenade. Very much impressed by the surroundings in which they found themselves, these laughing and babbling women had suddenly become grave and taciturn. Desiring, at present, to follow as much as possible the rules of the community, they hardly dared to budge, even before their mis- tress whom, neverthleess, they loved well. The very involuntary or rather unconscious change of these women in their welcome, ordinarily so expan- sive and so cordial, violently hurt the tender and sensitive heart of the young woman. Like all those who suffer, she had become sensitive; the least thing wounded her to the quick. Great tears escap- ing from her eyes fell upon the plump cheeks of her children, whom she passionately embraced as though to compensate herself with those innocent beings for the abandonment of all. The frugal repast was accomplished in the most profound silence; the noise of the forks and the glasses were the only ones which came to interrupt it. All was remembrance. compassion, for Najeska Ivanowna. What a difference, she was saying to herself, between this dinner and that of yesterday, seated at the table of her royal spouse, to the sound Gomicbooks.com