A little maid of Picardy
Date: 2024-05-29T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: World War; 1914-1918 -- France -- Juvenile fiction

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Title: A little maid of Picardy

Author: Amy Ella Blanchard

Illustrator: Frank T. Merrill

Release date: May 29, 2024 [eBook #73722]

Language: English

Original publication: Boston: W. A. Wilde Company, 1919

Credits: Carla Foust, David Edwards, David E. Brown, Rod Crawford, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LITTLE MAID OF PICARDY ***

A LITTLE MAID OF PICARDY

BOOKS BY AMY E. BLANCHARD

REVOLUTIONARY SERIES

A GIRL OF ’76. A Story of the Early Period of the
War for Independence. 331 pages.

A REVOLUTIONARY MAID. A Story of the Middle
Period of the War for Independence. 321 pages.

A DAUGHTER OF FREEDOM. A Story of the
Latter Period of the War for Independence. 312 pages.

Price, $1.50 net each.

IN THE GIRLS’ BOOKSHELF

ELIZABETH, BETSY AND BESS. A Story. 284
pages.

ELIZABETH, BETSY AND BESS—SCHOOL-MATES.
A Story. 308 pages.

THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS OF BRIGHTWOOD. A
Story or How They Kindled Their Fire and Kept It
Burning. 309 pages.

FAGOTS AND FLAMES. A Story of Winter Camp
Fires. 306 pages.

IN CAMP WITH THE MUSKODAY CAMP FIRE
GIRLS. A Story of Summer Camp Fires by Cabin
and Lake. 310 pages.

A GIRL SCOUT OF RED ROSE TROOP. A Story
for Girl Scouts. 320 pages.

A LITTLE MAID OF PICARDY. Story of a Little
Refugee in France. 338 pages.

Each illustrated by Colored Frontispiece and with Colored Jacket.

Cloth Bound. Price, $1.35 net each.

Also Books in the AMERICAN GIRL SERIES.

A Little Maid of
Picardy

By
AMY E. BLANCHARD

ILLUSTRATED BY
FRANK T. MERRILL

W. A. WILDE COMPANY
BOSTON CHICAGO

Copyrighted, 1919,
By W. A. Wilde Company
All rights reserved

A Little Maid of Picardy

Contents

I. | A Garden Grows | 9
II. | The First Break | 22
III. | We Go | 37
IV. | A Lonely Night | 53
V. | Well Met | 68
VI. | More Ways Than One | 83
VII. | A Strange Garret | 99
VIII. | A Bit of Sky | 113
IX. | Shoes | 129
X. | Nenette and Rintintin | 146
XI. | A Dog and His Day | 166
XII. | Terror by Night | 182
XIII. | Old Friends and New | 198
XIV. | Le-Coin-du-Pres | 215
XV. | Gaspard | 234
XVI. | Ups and Downs | 250
XVII. | The Return | 266
XVIII. | Old Folks at Home | 283
XIX. | Joy | 303
XX. | The End Is Peace | 321

A Little Maid of Picardy

CHAPTER I
A GARDEN GROWS

“IL y a dans ce village

Une enfant a l’œil noir.
C’est Jeanne au frais visage;
Elle chant matin et soir.
Elle est rieuse et belle,
Et dans nos environs
Tout le monde l’appelle
La fillette au chansons.
Tra la la—”

sang Lucie as she sat on a stone bench under a sheltering cherry tree. The “tra la la” suddenly ceased at a stir of the branches on the other side. Lucie glanced up with a twinkle in her eyes and changed the song to “Way down upon the Swanee river.”

“Lucie, Lucie, what are those funny words you sing?” called some one from over the wall.

“Ma foi, what ignorance!” returned Lucie with an uplift of her eyebrows. “As if one could not tell. Did you never hear ‘the Old Folks at Home’?”

“What is this ‘Ole folk zat ome?’ I do not know,” returned the voice.

Lucie laughed. “Come over, come over, Annette, and I will teach it to you. It will be droll to hear you sing it.”

Annette climbed nimbly to the top of the stone wall, and presently dropped to her feet, avoiding bushes and vines in order to make her way to where Lucie was sitting. “It is droll enough to hear you sing it,” she remarked. “It is in English of course.”

“American English; a song my mother often sings and which every one knows over there in the United States.”

“And you will teach it to me, this song? I shall like to sing it for grandfather. How he will be amused when he hears it.”

“Then repeat after me.”

This Annette essayed to do, but her efforts brought such peals of laughter from Lucie that she stopped with a pout. “How you are a silly one,” exclaimed she. “Me, I am all French. Can I then be expected to know English? If you will perhaps write the words for me I may then be able to say them, but when you speak so fast and run the words together at such a rate I cannot follow you.” She produced a piece of paper and a stub of pencil. Lucie carefully wrote out the first line, handed the paper back to Annette and waited with a gleeful smile.

“Vay don oopon ze Svanay reebair,” began Annette reading slowly. Then down fluttered the paper. “I cannot,” she cried. “This English is a monster! a Turkey! a pig! a thing impossible. I do not see how you can understand or speak it.”

“I speak it as well as I do French,” returned Lucie proudly. “Mamma wishes that I shall, for one day, behold! we go to her home to that same United States, then before my relations I shall not feel ashamed. I should consider myself a silly one if I could not understand them nor they me.”

“For me then there will arise no occasion for feeling shame, and therefore there is no need to learn this tongue, for I have no relatives in that country,” returned Annette complacently. “Would you not, Lucie, prefer to be all French. Is it not a sorrow to you that you are part English?”

“No, no,” Lucie shook her head. “I am not English, and I am very proud of my American blood and that I have American aunts and uncles. As for my mother, she tells me that she became French when she married a Frenchman, so this is now her country as well as my father’s and mine. I adore my France where I was born and where I hope I may die when my hour comes. It is the land of my father, my mother, my dear old grandfather. No, you cannot say I am English, Annette.”

This outbreak entirely satisfied Annette, who quite willingly changed the subject when her friend proposed that they should go further into the garden to see a certain rose now blooming gloriously. “Is it not magnificent?” Lucie asked as they stopped before the bush.

Annette viewed it with admiration. “It is truly,” she acknowledged, “more beautiful than my grandfather’s. Now he will be envious, that poor grandfather, for ours has not half the number of blooms.”

“They are very droll, those two old ones, your grandfather and mine,” remarked Lucie. “To hear them argue over a bed of cabbages one would think them the most important things in the world. They are never so happy as when they are discussing the merits of their gardens. For my part I cannot see that one is better than the other. They grow; there is enough and more than enough for our use, so what does it matter? Here comes Paulette now to gather vegetables. Shall we help her to pick the peas, Annette?”

“And shell them afterward?”

“Why yes, if you will.”

Paulette, rugged of feature, brown of skin, sharp-eyed and capable, came forward with a basket on her arm. She wore a stuff skirt, a huge apron, a stout sacque and a little cap. Her face was rather grave and stern until she smiled, then her expression showed a kindly humor.

“May we help you gather the peas, Paulette?” asked Lucie, balancing herself on one foot.

Paulette scanned the vines. “Yes, if you will be careful to pick only the well-filled pods. One may not take those not fully matured. Guard well against that.”

“We know and we will be careful,” returned Lucie and forthwith the three set to work, the girls using their aprons to hold the gathered pods, Paulette giving them once in a while a sharp eye to see that they performed their task properly.

At last when peas, carrots, onions, lettuce had been gathered Paulette carried them into the house and the little girls sat down again on the stone bench to shell the peas. Paulette meantime bustled in and out to bring water, to wash the lettuce and swing it around and around in a wire basket that it might be freed from all moisture, to scrape the little potatoes, to pick over the herbs for the ragout. The warm air was scented with odors from the garden, the rose-bushes, the clambering vines and mellowing fruit. The two girls chattered away like magpies about pleasant, homely things: their lessons, their pets, the growing garden, the good curé, the kind nuns. Outside the white wall the noises from the long street seemed only sociable sounds. Carts rattled along, children called to one another, men tramped home from the factories to their midday meal, stopping their whistling or singing to greet some friend. All this made a pleasant accompaniment to the drone of bees, and the drowsy crooning of hens in the chicken yard. There were homely, suggestive sounds, too, from the kitchens.

The two little girls, Lucie Du Bois and Annette Le Brun, were great friends, as might be surmised since they were next door neighbors. Lucie, her father and mother, her grandfather, Paulette, their maid and her son Jean, occupied a comfortable, square house whose red-tiled roof could be seen when winter stripped the leaves from the trees, but which in summer was almost hidden by green. A white stucco wall separated the garden from that of the Le Bruns, but the wall was not an impassable barrier, for the two girls, by means of a ladder, or, when the ladder was lacking, by means of overhanging branches, were able to climb back and forth.

Dark-haired, brown-eyed Annette lived with her grandparents. She was a bright, ardent little soul, adoring her best friend, Lucie, who excelled her in imagination and sometimes surprised her by her vivid way of telling things. Lucie, too, had dark eyes like her father’s, but her hair was a soft golden brown like her mother’s. She was about fourteen, Annette a year older. While the latter had legends of the saints at her tongue’s end, Lucie had far wider information concerning more modern tales. She never tired of hearing from her mother stories of the Indians and of her pioneer forefathers. These stories she would retell to Annette, who listened wide-eyed. Moreover there was a small collection of her mother’s girlhood books which Lucie was permitted to have and from which she gained a knowledge not only of her mother’s native tongue, but of things American. Therefore to Annette she was a very superior person whose companionship she greatly enjoyed, and preferred to that of any other girl she knew.

The big factory with the tall chimney over to the west belonged to the Du Boises; that on the other side of the town to the Le Bruns. Grandfather Du Bois had retired from active business, but still made a daily visit to the rooms where clattering machines whizzed and whirled all day long. He liked to talk over affairs with his son who had taken his place in the business. Monsieur Le Brun still remained head of his firm, having no son to succeed him, though he often spoke of the day when Annette should marry and a petit fils should relieve him of his cares.

The task of shelling the peas was far from being a disagreeable one, for while their fingers split the fresh pods and raked the pale green globes from them, the two girls chattered incessantly and at last began the subject which they often discussed but never failed to enjoy. This time it was Annette who began by asking: “Have you really made up your mind which saint you prefer?”

“For me it is Saint Elizabeth of Hungary or Saint Ursula,” replied Lucie. “I adore that story of the loaves of bread turned into roses, and I also like Saint Ursula for she was of Brittany. It must have been wonderful to see her leading her eleven thousand virgins.”

“You would like to do that sort of thing, wouldn’t you, my Lucie? Have you no saint of your own country that you would like above all others?”

“My own country? France is my country.”

“I mean that country of the United States that you are always talking about.”

“How you are foolish,” returned Lucie crossly. “Why do you try to separate me from the land of my birth? I think you are very unkind. I don’t believe you want to acknowledge me as a compatriot.”

Annette looked a trifle abashed. She had really meant only to tease. “Well,” she began to hunt around for an excuse, “you are continually telling me of its wonders, and you speak of the characters in those story books as if you were intimately acquainted with them, that Jo and her sisters in that ‘Leetle Veemen’ you so like.”

“Of course I am intimately acquainted with them, for I have read that book many times. One may have friends anywhere, but that does not mean one must adopt their countries.”

This argument proved Lucie’s case and Annette changed the subject back again to the favorite saints. “If you will have a sweet saint of France there is Saint Genevieve,” she remarked. “It was she whose prayers delivered Paris from Attila the Hun, you remember.”

“Yes, she is very nice,” Lucie acknowledged somewhat flippantly, not being in a mood to accept any suggestion, “but you see every one knows about her. I should like to have as my favorite some one more uncommon. I think I shall ask Sister Marie Ottilia to find me a saint that I can feel very near to because she has not too many followers.” She set the subject aside with an air of finality, and Annette felt that this time she had really gone too far in her desire to tease.

The two were silent till at last Lucie said: “There, Annette, these are the last. I will take them in. The pods Paulette can give to the animals. See, already my pigeons are coming for a share of the peas. I can give them only a few, for Paulette will scold if she thinks I am wasting them. She has a sharp eye for food, that Paulette. Wait for me, Annette, I will bring a book.”

Emboldened by this overture of peace Annette ventured to say: “Not ‘Leetle Veemen.’ I cannot understand that.”

Lucie paused with the brown basin of peas in her hand and threw a laughing glance over her shoulder. “Perhaps you would better like something of Dickens,” she said.

“O, that Deekens! He is an impossible!” cried Annette, throwing out her hands with a gesture of rejection. “Not that, I beg of you.” Lucie made no reply but continued on her way to the kitchen. She was gone some time but at last returned with a green book under arm. She showed the title on the back to Annette with a gleeful laugh.

“Ma foi but you are a tease,” cried Annette. “I will not remain. I will go home at once.” She jumped up in order to carry out her decision.

Lucie forced her back upon the seat. “And why am I not to tease as well as you? To read does not hurt one’s feelings, but to be denied one’s country does,” she said.

“Did I really hurt your feelings?” Annette asked contritely.

“Would it not hurt your feelings if one declared you did not belong to your native country, to France?”

“It would most surely,” Annette was obliged to confess, “but I was only teasing my Lucie. As for this Deekens, he bewilders, he confuses me. Is it because you are angry with me and wish me to go that you bring this so impossible book?”

“But this you know could not be,” Lucie assured her. “Wait till I have told you. I asked my mother to suggest something from her books which would be interesting to both you and me and she gave me this which she tells me is quite unlike any of the others of this Dickens. It is called ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and is about the French Revolution. The heroine has my own name of Lucie. My mother says the story is exciting beyond words.”

“Voila une autre chose,” returned Annette, accepting the situation without further protest. “Let us then proceed.”

Usually Lucie’s methods of translation were very free, to say the least. Her way was to skim over a page as rapidly as possible, then relate the contents in her own words. Anything that appeared uninteresting she skipped, consequently the abridged tale which Annette heard was shorn of many of its features and she was frequently bewildered in trying to keep track of the plot and the characters. If she complained of this Lucie would laboriously try to translate literally, which was more bewildering still. Both girls, however, enjoyed such translations as Lucie took pains to make clear. The usual manner would run something like this, Lucie turning over the leaves rapidly:

“It was in the year 1775. There was a man in a coach who had a message brought to him. He was to meet a young lady at Dover.”

“A young man was this?” Annette queried.

“No, an old. He was a banker or something. He had to tell the young lady that her father was living.”

“Didn’t she want him to be living?”

“That I do not know yet, but anyway she thought him dead. He had been in prison for eighteen years.”

“Ma foi, Lucie, for what was he imprisoned? He must have been a very bad man. Eighteen years! A lifetime.”

“It doesn’t say why he was imprisoned. He may not have been a wicked person. Anyway they went to see him. He was in a tower making shoes.”

“Shoes? My Lucie, why should he make shoes?”

“O, just to pass away the time.”

“But so curious is this. It would not entertain me to spend my time making shoes.”

“It might if you wanted to pass away the time and could find nothing else to do. I should think it rather interesting myself.”

“For me I should prefer something else; dresses, maybe, or hats. I should not mind at all making hats.”

“Men’s hats or ladies’ hats? Straw hats or what?”

“O, not men’s hats of course, beautiful hats upon which one could use ribbons and lace flowers.”

“Where could you get all those things if you were in prison?”

“I haven’t an idea. I suppose in the same manner that the man got leather for the shoes. Does it tell?”

“Not yet. Maybe it will. We shall see.” So the tale went on till the midday meal was ready and a voice from the other side of the wall called: “Annette, Annette, le dejeuner est servi.” Then over the wall climbed Annette, leaving the fortunes of Lucie Manette, Evremonde and Sidney Carton to be followed another day.

CHAPTER II
THE FIRST BREAK

“MOUSSE! Mousse! Where is Mousse?” Lucie began calling her pet cat as she ran from kitchen to dining-room to library. At the door of the last named room she stopped short to look around upon the little group gathered there. “Such serious faces, all of you,” she exclaimed. “What is it? Mamma, papa, grandfather, you look as if you had lost your last friends.” She perched upon her grandfather’s knee and began pulling his moustache so as to make the corners of his mouth turn up. “Smile, cher grandpère,” she said.

He took her hands gently away and held them in his. “It is a time to be serious, my child,” he said. “One cannot smile when there is war to face. I who remember 1870 cannot smile now.”

“War? Not for us, not France. What has she done?” Lucie looked around incredulously.

“She has done nothing but be her true self,” said her grandfather shaking his head sadly.

“But it is not near, this war. It will not touch us here in our home.”

“Alas, it is very near. The Germans have invaded Belgium, and are marching on to Paris where, they boast, they will eat their Christmas dinner.”

“Oh but,” Lucie began, looking toward her father, whose face wore a stern, set look. “Papa,” she cried springing up and throwing herself into his arms, “you are going! It is this that makes you all look so. You are going to the war, to be a soldier. O, papa!”

He stroked her hair softly. “Yes, little one, I am going as all good Frenchmen will go. We are not ready, we of France, but we shall do our best. For this hour Germany has been preparing for forty years. She is the one country which desires and is ready for war. The rest of us have been taken unawares but—” He shrugged his shoulders.

“And is it soon, at once, that you must go?” Lucie asked tremulously.

“At once. There is no time to lose. You must be brave, little one, and cheer mamma. You are a daughter of France, remember, and her women do not quail before danger. You will remember that and be brave always, always, no matter what comes?” He took her face between his hands and kissed her on each cheek.

Lucie winked back the tears and, though her voice quavered, she answered: “I will be brave, always, always, papa. I will remember.”

“That is my dear daughter. Try to help all you can. There will be much to be done and you must do your part.”

Lucie looked across the room. “But grandfather is not going,” she said.

He lifted his head with a sudden, proud gesture. “Not yet, my pigeon, but if I am called I shall answer in spite of that old wound the Prussians gave me nearly fifty years ago.”

“And Jean, does Paulette’s Jean go?” Lucie continued her questions.

“Oh, yes, Jean must go,” her father told her. “He has enlisted already in my company.”

“Poor Paulette!” Lucie looked grave. She realized that it was indeed no time to make merry.

And in the days which followed she realized this still more. Her mother went about with a faraway look in her eyes. Paulette was grimmer and more silent. Grandfather Du Bois talked much with his neighbor, Mons. Le Brun, of that other war in which both had taken part. Lucie caught such sentences as: “They shall not pass. Never again shall it be, never, never,” spoken fiercely. Then there would be long silences as the two old men sat under the trees in the peaceful garden.

It was with contradictory emotions that the little girl saw her father march away with Jean, Pierre, Louis and François, youths of the town whom she had always known. They were all singing the Marseillaise. Lucie was thrilled as she heard them. Her grandfather and Mons. Le Brun stood stiffly saluting the flag as it passed. Madame Du Bois made a sweeping curtsy. Paulette followed her example, and, in her turn so did Lucie. Her heart beat high as she saw her father in his captain’s uniform leading his men. There were many others on the street waving handkerchiefs and crying “Au revoir.” Old men and boys were shouting “Vive la France!” or “Brave garçons!” As the rat-a-tat of the drums and the singing died away, and the floating flag became a mere speck, Lucie felt that she could not keep back her tears. She glanced at her mother, on whose face was a strange, exalted look. Lucie grasped her mother’s hand. It was as cold as ice, but she held Lucie’s tightly and smiled down at her. A few of the women were weeping though they continued to cheer mechanically as the tears coursed down their cheeks. Madame Du Bois’s eyes were tearless, and Lucie, who felt the moisture must overflow in her own eyes, choked back the lump in her throat and smiled into the face above her.

“They will come back victorious,” exclaimed her grandfather bravely.

“If they come back at all,” remarked Paulette dejectedly.

Thereupon the lump in Lucie’s throat grew bigger and forced from her eyes the tears which she had been striving to keep back.

She broke from her mother, rushed into the house and up, up into the farthest corner of the attic where she could have out her cry without being seen. Her father! Her beloved father gone, gone! She might never see him again on earth. She could not bear to think of it! In the excitement of the past few days, in the glamour of beholding uniforms, hearing drums beating and seeing flags flying she had scarcely realized that he was going into dangers, but now that part was done with, that exciting part which had buoyed her up, and ahead were only days of waiting and of anxiety.

The sobs grew less and less, however, as she remembered her promise to be brave. She repeated it over and over again: “I will be brave, always, always. I will, papa.” She wiped her eyes and gazed seriously out of the small window by which she sat. The pigeons were strutting over the red-tiled roof, making their queer cooing sounds. Down in the garden, walking back and forth, back and forth, she saw her grandfather slowly pacing.

Presently something soft and furry rubbed against her knee. “You, Mousse!” she cried. “You have searched me out. What a cat indeed! How did you know where to find me?” She gathered the little purring creature into her arms, gently stroked his head till he settled down in her lap; then she sat there very still for some time, thinking, thinking, until looking down into the garden she saw Paulette come out with two buckets and go toward the well.

“The poor Paulette,” exclaimed Lucie, “she will now have to do Jean’s work since he is no longer here. Behold grandfather! he has taken a bucket. He is helping her. What a thing indeed! I, too, should help; it is what I promised papa I would do. I had forgotten all that might happen with Jean gone, that Paulette would have double work unless we others should do some of it. Come, Mousse, we must go down.”

She carried the small creature with her down to the garden, calling as she went: “What can I do? What can I do? Paulette, is there nothing I can do to help?”

“To be sure there is something,” replied Paulette, setting down her bucket, a smile relaxing the gravity of her face. “You can feed the fowls.”

“Truly I can,” replied Lucie. “I know where their food is. Come with me to feed the fowls,” she said to her grandfather who was setting down the second bucket.

“And do you think I have nothing better to do than help you feed the fowls?” he asked, smiling at her indulgently.

“No doubt you have, but it will not take long, and it is so much more entertaining when one has a companion to whom one can say: ‘Is not the speckled hen greedy?’ or, ‘What a coward is the red rooster!’”

“To-day then it is allowed that you make those remarks to me, but after this—” He shook his head.

“After this why can you not?”

“Because, my child, I take my son’s place at the factory, as must many an old man do.”

Lucie looked thoughtfully across at the neighboring garden. “Mons. Le Brun will not have to change his habits, but that other grandfather of Annette’s must do so, I suppose, for her uncles and cousins will go to the war, no doubt.”

Her grandfather drew a quick sigh. “Yes, all of us can do our part in one way or another. Well, in my case it is not as if I were without experience. Come, let us go to those fowls, and then something else. One must not be an idler these days.”

The two went to the little shed at the back of the garden where they found the grain to scatter for the waiting fowls. The pigeons, too must have their share. These were so tame that they perched on Lucie’s shoulder, ate from her hands, sat upon her arm when she held it out. All the time she chattered away, sometimes to her grandfather, sometimes to the creatures about her.

The air was sweet and fresh coming from across gardens. Even the smoking factories could not overcome the odors of blossoming plants, while the clatter of machinery was less in evidence than the laughter of children, the rippling talk of young girls, the shouts of boys. This evening, however, there was less of laughter than usual. From so many of the houses had gone forth a father, a son, a brother, a husband to the war, and anxious foreboding filled the hearts of the older people.

Lucie carried the empty basin into the house, leaving her grandfather with head thoughtfully bent and hands behind him to resume his pacing of the garden walk. Madame Du Bois was busy in the house taking upon herself some of those duties which were generally Paulette’s.

“But, mamma,” said Lucie, seeing her in the dining-room, “I can set the table.”

“So you can to-morrow,” said her mother, “but now I have done it, and there is nothing further to add to it.”

Lucie viewed it critically. “I can gather some fresh flowers,” she offered.

Her mother made no answer.

Lucie looked over her shoulder as she went out. “One must have courage, mamma, so I will gather the very gayest and brightest blossoms to cheer us up.”

She continued her way into the garden and was gravely contemplating roses and gillyflowers when she heard some one whistling a joyous air. For a moment she thought it was Jean, then she remembered that there was no more a Jean to be whistling and singing about the premises. She discovered, too, that the sound came from the other side of the wall. It was not Annette who was there. Annette never whistled. Presently the whistling ceased. Lucie began to arrange her bouquet, but before it was half completed she was aware of a pair of eyes fixed upon her, and looking up she saw above the wall a merry face smiling down at her.

“Victor!” she cried. “Where did you come from?”

“Tell me first,” returned the lad, “where is my cousin Annette.”

“That I do not know. Isn’t she in the house?”

“Would I be seeking her in the garden if she were?” laughed Victor. “No, my dear Lucie, she is neither within nor without the mansion of the Le Bruns so far as I can ascertain. I have brought something for her, but since she is not here, and Madame the grandmother objects to this gift, I must take it back or bestow it elsewhere.”

“O, Victor, what is this gift to which Madame Le Brun objects?”

“La la, I have aroused your curiosity, have I?”

“Well, you see,” Lucie began bunching the flowers she held, “you see I am interested in a gift for Annette, who is my dearest friend.”

“My cousin Annette is to be congratulated, mademoiselle,” returned Victor with a twinkle in his eye. “Very well, then, give me a rose and I will show you the gift, a fine rose, mind.”

“Red or white?”

“Neither; one of those delicate pink ones like your cheeks.”

Lucie ignored the flattery, and held up a rose which Victor regarded critically. “Too full blown,” he declared. “It will fade before morning.”

“I will gather one from the bush, one between a rose and a bud.”

“As you yourself are.”

Lucie made a little face at him. “How you are silly, Victor. You speak as if to a young lady.”

“Well, you will be, give you time, and I may not be here then to make pretty speeches. I am but taking time by the forelock.”

Lucie paid no attention to the cryptic speech but gave a serious regard to the rosebush from which she should select the proper flower, at last deciding upon one of just the exact maturity to suit the fastidious taste of Victor. He nodded approvingly as he took it and stuck it in his buttonhole. “I shall wear it as an amulet,” he told her.

“Foolish boy,” replied Lucie disdainfully.

“Perhaps you think I shall need nothing to protect me from danger. I assure you I shall. Perhaps your rose may ward off German bullets.”

“Bullets?”

“Why not? A soldier must consider bullets.”

“A soldier?”

Victor nodded. “It seems that you are not very original, mademoiselle. You do nothing but repeat my words like a parrot.”

“But these surprises. You are too young. Surely, Victor, you are not thinking of going to the war.”

“And why not? I shall become eighteen next month. I am but waiting that day. I have had considerable military training. Aux armes, citoyens!” He sang in a fine clear voice. “Shall I not fly to the aid of our beloved France as well as another? I am no coward, I tell you, Lucie Du Bois down there among your flowers.”

“Of course not. No one would believe that, but you must admit that you are young.”

“So much the better. I decided at once that I should lose no time, therefore I have been making ready. To-day I came to make my adieux to my cousins and my friends here. In passing I will say that I also had in mind the gift for my young cousin, that gift which her grandmother will not permit her to accept. Madame Le Brun declares it shall not have house-room nor even out-of-house-room.”

“It must be a queer sort of gift.”

“Not so queer. Wait, I will show you. Stand where you are and you shall behold.” He scrambled down the other side of the wall while Lucie stood expectantly. Presently above the wall appeared first a pair of ears, then two bright eyes, then the entire head of a very alert and inquisitive little dog, which looked around interestedly.

“O, Victor,” exclaimed Lucie, “what a darling!”

“Speak, Pom Pom,” said Victor over the wall, and a quick sharp bark from Pom Pom replied.

Victor’s head again appeared above the vines. He took the little dog under his arm.

“And you are going to give Annette that adorable little dog,” said Lucie.

“I was going to give it to her, but now I am not permitted to do so.”

“Then shall you take it to camp as a mascot?”

“I thought of doing that, but I do not wish him killed nor left without a master. You see, he belonged to my sister who died two years ago. She charged me to see that he was always well cared for, and who can tell what would happen to him in a camp?”

“He is certainly a darling,” repeated Lucie, standing on tiptoe that her fingers might touch the cold nose of the little dog who licked her fingers daintily. “See, Victor, he makes friends with me at once.”

“Would you like to have him?” asked Victor suddenly.

“O, Victor, I would, I truly would.”

“Then he is yours.”

“O, but—”

“Your mother will permit?”

“I think so. I am sure she will.”

“Yet we would better ask.”

Paying no heed to the flowers she had dropped in her effort to reach the dog, Lucie turned to run back to her mother. “Mamma, Mamma,” she cried as she burst into the room, “that Victor is there with a dog, so darling a dog as you never saw, so affectionate, so intelligent, and this dog is mine if you give me permission to keep him.”

“But why you, my daughter?” asked her mother.

“Because, you see, it is this way. It is Victor Guerin, of course you know, Annette’s cousin who comes so often. Very well, he brings this dog to Annette. She is not at home, has gone who knows where, and her grandmother, who does not like dogs, refuses to allow Victor to leave this precious little creature.”

“But why does Victor wish to give it away?”

“O, I forgot to say that it is because next month he becomes eighteen and then he can enlist in the army.”

“That lad?”

“He is young, is he not? Still there are others as young and he is mad to go. This dog, you see, belonged to his sister who died, and he wants to place it where it will have good care.”

“I see. Very well, you may take it on one condition, that after the war you will give it again to Victor if he wishes it.”

“Yes, yes, mamma, I will.”

“But what of Mousse?”

“O, Mousse!” Lucie looked uncertain. “I will ask Victor to help me to make those two to become friends. On his part he can charge Pom Pom not to hurt Mousse and I will make Mousse understand. He may not at once, but he will in time. I will go now to bring Pom Pom to show you.”

She flew to the garden to see Victor astride the wall holding the little dog.

“Mamma consents, Victor,” cried Lucie as soon as she was within hearing, “but there is this condition: that if you want him when you return from the war I am to give him back to you.”

“That is good,” returned Victor. “I confess, Lucie, that I am very fond of the little creature and I shall go off with better heart for knowing he is in good hands.” He climbed down from the wall, lifted down Pom Pom and placed him in Lucie’s arm. “This is your new mistress. Pom Pom,” he said, “you must be a good dog and mind her.”

Pom Pom looked questioningly from one to the other, whining a little but accepting the situation, for he did not attempt to leave Lucie’s arms.

“Come with me,” begged Lucie, “and help me to make peace with Mousse. Pom Pom will not hurt him, you think?”

“Not if I tell him he must not. He is very obedient.”

Lucie looked a little troubled. “I wish I could say the same of Mousse, still he is most intelligent and I do not believe he will mind very much. He is really fonder of Paulette than of me, so I don’t believe he will be very jealous.” She looked down lovingly and stroked the dog’s soft head, Victor regarding them both soberly.

“Shall I bring your flowers?” asked Victor presently. “You have dropped them all.”

“O, yes, please do. I forgot all about them in thinking of Pom Pom,” responded Lucie.

He gathered up the scattered blossoms and followed her along the path to the house.

CHAPTER III
WE GO

IT was later in the day that Annette came flying in. “This dog, Lucie,” she cried, “this dog of Victor’s, where is he? I wish much to see him. Unlucky me not to be allowed to have him! Victor has told me, the good Victor, how clever is this little dog, that he will stand upon his hind legs when one bids him dance to a whistling, and that he will also sing to an accompaniment. Is it so, or is this just nonsense? He is very ready for a joke, this Victor.”

“Yes, he does those things,” Lucie assured her.

“The singing? It is hard to believe that.”

“If one may call it singing. It is not very melodious, though no doubt it is the best he can do.”

“We must teach him new tricks to surprise Victor when he comes back. I have never seen this Pom Pom, for you know he belonged to my cousin Marguerite who lived in Bordeaux which is too far away for one to visit, and Victor, though he has been here a number of times, has never brought the dog with him.”

“We will go to see him if you like. Victor thought I would best tie him for a day or two lest he try to find his way back to him, so he is there in the garden. I will have him on a leash and let him run a little. Come.”

Of course Annette went into raptures over the new pet, and was so regretful at being deprived of him that Lucie consoled her by saying she should have a share in him, although he must live with the Du Boises rather than with Le Bruns. This arrangement quite satisfied Annette who had felt herself defrauded of what naturally should have come to her. So between them it certainly was not for lack of petting and feeding that Pom Pom could feel himself abandoned, and, as a matter of fact, in a few days he was entirely at home, ready to show off his tricks and to attach himself devotedly to Lucie. To be sure he would sometimes stand at the gate looking wistfully up and down the street, regarding Lucie with questioning eyes when she came to him.

But no more did he or his mistress see Victor Guerin before bewildering and evil days fell upon the town. First came troops marching through, a thing of almost daily occurrence and a signal for the two little girls to run out with flowers, fruit, or cakes of chocolate to give to the soldiers, who would stick the flowers on the ends of their bayonets and go off nibbling chocolate between cheers or snatches of the Marseillaise.

It had become a thing of every day to see Grandfather Du Bois and Grandfather Le Brun start off together to their factories, there to remain all day. It was becoming customary, too, to behold women doing men’s work and for the two little girls to apply themselves to duties they had never known before. Still they were happy. No one much believed in a protracted war. Those who shook their heads in doubt were laughed at and called croaking ravens.

But one day came a message which compelled Madame Du Bois, pale and shaken, to leave Lucie in charge of her grandfather and Paulette, for the word was that Captain Du Bois was severely wounded and his wife decided that nothing must keep her from going to him.

Lucie clung to her mother, choking back sobs and begging that she might go, too. “Take me, mother. Please take me,” she cried, “I will be brave and I can help, indeed I can.”

“But, dear child, it is not possible,” Madame Du Bois tried to explain. “I do not know even if I may see him. I may not be allowed that privilege. I shall keep as near him as I can and shall return if he recovers,” she gave a quick sigh. “If it be that I must come back without him you must have the courage to face the worst, and bear in mind that it will be a hero for whom we mourn. Now, dear daughter, be as helpful here as you can. Give as little trouble as possible. When we keep busy there is less time for grieving. You must try to keep grandpère and Paulette in good heart.”

These words encouraged Lucie to show a braver spirit. She no longer wept, but stood looking very grave and thoughtful. “You will write, mamma, very soon,” she said.

“Yes, yes, as soon as I can. As soon as it is possible I will send some sort of message. It may be that I shall have difficulty in finding a proper place to stay, but at the hospital I shall try to make myself so useful that they will wish me to stay.”

So away she went, leaving Lucie waving farewells and trying to smile in spite of tearful eyes. She remembered that she must not be a coward and that she must keep busy so as to have no time for grieving.

“Paulette, Paulette,” she called as she reëntered the house. The old servant had disappeared in order to hide her own emotions.

“Paulette, give me something to do, something very hard that will make it necessary for me to keep my whole mind on it. I must have something to do. It is so hard this parting.” She was biting her lip and giving gasps between words.

“To be sure it is hard,” returned Paulette turning away her head. “Do I not know, I, a mother?”

“It is not only that mamma goes, that alone would be a hard thing to bear. She has never left me before, but papa, wounded, who knows how badly, and if ever—if ever—” She broke down and was gathered up into Paulette’s arms to sob out her sorrow on the good woman’s shoulder. She had kept back the tears as long as she could; now they must overflow.

“There, there, my lamb,” Paulette patted her soothingly. “The good God knows what is best. He does not willingly afflict. Yes, yes, weep all you wish; it is better so. One must weep at times or go mad. To-morrow, perhaps we shall have good news. We can be hopeful until we know. It is best to hope.”

In a few minutes Lucie dried her eyes and tried to smile. “We must think of grandfather, Paulette,” she said. “It is he one must first consider. He will be coming home from the factory very soon and there will be none but ourselves to greet him. He always went down that he might walk home with papa, you remember, then it was mamma who was always on hand to welcome him with a smile. I must train my mouth to smile no matter how I feel; it was what mamma did. Somehow I must always manage to have a smile for grandfather.”

“The poor old one,” sighed Paulette. “It is hard for him, his only son. I know; I know. Yes, chérie, you must meet him with a courage. Compose yourself. Go bathe the eyes, the flushed cheeks. Then we will make him one of those omelettes he best likes, and you may go to gather the eggs for it.”

“That is not a very difficult task but it is an interesting one,” answered Lucie, trying to be cheerful. “I will take Pom Pom to help. He adores to hunt for eggs. Poor Pom Pom, he has been so troubled to see me in distress, and has been doing his best to ask me what is the matter.”

“He is an animal most intelligent,” acknowledged Paulette. “Though for me I prefer Mousse.”

“Ah, that is because Mousse prefers you,” declared Lucie.

“He is the older friend,” Paulette remarked as Lucie went off to her room.

There were few traces of tears upon the little girl’s face when she returned, and she gave Paulette a smile as she went out with Pom Pom to hunt for eggs. “She is a marvel, that child,” murmured Paulette. “It is not only for me who adore her to see that, but it is the same with others, so brave, so cheerful. Hark, she sings of that Jeanne who is cheerful all the day, like herself. Ah, my little heart, sing while you can. There may come a day when you cannot.”

Determined not to look forward to trouble Lucie went on toward the hen house, Pom Pom leaping and barking as he accompanied her. This was a great game, for he could nose about in the hay and bark when he came upon a nest. It was not always the right nest, but that did not matter; it was just as amusing to him though it might not be to the hen who was in possession and who would fly madly off squawking a protest.

In due time a sufficient number of eggs filled the little basket Lucie carried. She might not participate in the preparation of the omelette, for that must be made at exactly the right moment and be served at once, but she could watch for her grandfather and be ready to greet him in the manner of her mother. “Well, grandfather, how has gone the day? Not badly, I hope. And you are not too tired. I will take your hat and stick. The meal is almost ready, so come in and rest.”

He looked down at her keenly. She knew what he was thinking about and opened her eyes very wide that he might see there were no tears in them.

He laid his hand gently on her head. “Dear daughter,” he murmured, “dear daughter.”

She took his hat and stick and put them in their place, then took her mother’s place at the table upon which Paulette was already setting the plates of soup. Neither of the two was able to eat very heartily, though they made a pretence of it and spoke at length of the excellence of Paulette’s omelette, and each tried to hearten the other by making foolish little jokes, but the meal was soon over, then although Lucie was ready to help Paulette with the dishes she would have none of it, but sent her off to keep her grandfather company.

It was not till almost dark that she found him sitting alone in the twilight, his hands upon the arms of the big chair by a window of his own room, his eyes fixed upon the eastern sky which reflected the afterglow in soft tints of rose and purple. Lucie seated herself upon his knee and his arms folded around her. Neither spoke but there was silent comfort in this nearness. At last the old man put the child gently from him. “I must see Antoine Le Brun,” he said. “Let us keep a great hope in our hearts, my child. To-morrow we may hear. God grant it to be good news.”

So he left her and Lucie went down to the kitchen to find Paulette telling her beads, with Mousse drowsing on the window sill beside her and Pom Pom curled up in a heap at her feet.

The next day came a hurried note from Madame Du Bois. She was making but slow progress owing to the hard conditions everywhere, but she was with friends, and she hoped to be able to continue her journey. They must not be alarmed if they did not hear at once. She would write as soon as opportunity afforded, and with this they were obliged to be satisfied.

A day or two of quiet when Lucie tried to get used to the loneliness and made a great effort to cheer up her grandfather. Between whiles there was Annette, to be sure, and there was also Pom Pom who was a ready pupil when the two girls attempted to teach him to bark when they cried: “Vive la France!” and to hold a small flag in his mouth waving it when they sang the Marseillaise. As for Mousse, he had reached the point of tolerating the newcomer, but not an inch further would he go. A proud disdain was the limit of what he felt he was called upon to express.

“It is as much as we can expect of him,” declared Lucie: “Cats are always more reserved than dogs, mamma says.”

Annette laughed. “How you are a funny one,” she said. “I could never analyze an animal in that way.”

“O, do not flatter me by imagining it was my thought,” replied Lucie. “It was mamma who said it. I think, Annette, that we must try to make a true poilu of Pom Pom. Perhaps in time we can persuade him to wear a sword and cap.”

“But who will make them for him?”

“Victor, perhaps, can make the sword and we can make the cap. That poor Victor will not have a very happy time in the trenches, I fear. Grandfather says the modern fighting is most bewildering.”

“So says my grandfather. How those two talk and argue and fight their old battles over.”

“Yes, when they are not talking about the factories. Over the top, Pom Pom,” cried Lucie as she vainly tried to make the little dog jump over a stick she held.

“He has no ambition to be a poilu,” declared Annette.

“But he must be, or we shall conscript him,” replied Lucie, at which speech of course Annette laughed.

“Do you think it possible that the Germans will come to this place?” asked Lucie after a silence during which Pom Pom was allowed his freedom.

“I do not know,” returned Annette, “but I am afraid sometimes.”

“And I, too, when I go to bed with no papa, no mamma in the house and wake up in the night feeling so alone.”

“I, too, have neither father nor mother.”

“But you have a grandmother which I have not.”

“Ah, but you have, over there in the United States.”

“Much good that does when there is an ocean between us.”

Their talk was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Lucie’s grandfather with a stern and set expression upon his face. At the same moment came an imperative call for Annette who scrambled over the wall hastily. “We go,” announced Mons. Du Bois, “at once.” “O, grandfather is it—is it papa?” quavered Lucie.

“No. The Germans are coming,” he replied curtly. “Go to your mother’s room; gather together such valuables as you know she may wish to secure, with any of your own, put them in a strong box and bring the box to me at once. There is no time to lose.”

Without waiting for further orders Lucie flew to her mother’s room, hurriedly gathered together pieces of jewelry, a couple of miniatures, a packet of letters, a few laces. To these she added her own little trinkets, crowding them all into a box which she brought down from the attic and which, when filled, she carried to her grandfather. She found him with Paulette in the garden. Both had spades with which they were digging up the earth as rapidly as possible. A large box of silver stood at one side, another of papers. Lucie set down the box she carried. Her grandfather glanced up but continued his spading as he gave further directions.

“Go now, and make a bundle of your clothing, no more than you can carry easily. Take only serviceable things, nothing flimsy.”

Back went Lucie, wasted no time in collecting shoes, stockings, a pair of each, a change of underwear, a couple of her stoutest frocks. She gazed for a moment wistfully at the daintier, prettier things, ribbons, sashes, the light summer hat, but forbore to put in anything more than she had been told to do. She then put on her newest frock and with the bundle under her arm went on downstairs, pausing to give but one farewell look at her room.

Her grandfather and Paulette were throwing on the last spadefuls of earth to cover up the spot where they had buried the valuables. Then they tramped it down. Paulette craftily heaped dead branches, stripped vines and odds and ends upon the place to make it look like a mere dump heap.

Lucie followed her grandfather to the house. As they passed through the kitchen she saw baskets filled with provisions. In the hall were satchels and bags. She watched her grandfather take a bunch of keys from his pocket, open a drawer in her father’s desk, and take therefrom a bundle of papers which he stowed away inside his coat.

Presently Paulette came in laden with baskets and bundles.

“You have too much there, Paulette,” said Mons. Du Bois.

“Better throw them or give them away than leave them for the boches,” she responded grimly.

“The chickens, Ninette the goat, Mousse, we cannot leave them,” cried Lucie in distress.

“We must,” declared Paulette doggedly. “Mousse will be able to fend for himself; he is a good mouser. The chickens,” she made a little dubious sound. “Le bon Dieu knows what will become of them.”

“All our pretty hens, the beautiful big cocks, and poor Ninette. Is it not possible that we can take them to some safe place?”

“Where?” asked Paulette sarcastically.

“I don’t know. O, I don’t know, but it seems so very dreadful.”

“They will not be here long,” replied Paulette gruesomely with a lift of her eyebrows.

Lucie did not dare continue the subject with all the possibilities it suggested, but she did say, “Pom Pom will go. He must. Nothing, no one, shall persuade me to leave him behind.”

Her grandfather looked down doubtfully at the little dog crouched at Lucie’s feet and gazing from one to the other with wistfully questioning eyes.

“He can walk, you know,” Lucie went on beseechingly. “He will be no trouble at all. I shall not need to carry him.”

“But to feed him.”

“He shall have a share of my food.”

“It is a long way, dear child, and we may want for food ourselves.”

“Where is it that we go?”

“To Paris if we can get there. It seems the best place, for there we shall find friends and work to do.”

“And we walk all that distance?”

“Part of the way at least. The trains are not running to this town, for many of the stations and much of the railroad is destroyed. Everything is in confusion.”

Lucie looked from the window to see coming down the street a procession of men, women, children, all sorts of vehicles, each laden with what could be carried.

“The first consideration is to get away from here as quickly as possible,” her grandfather went on. “Later we may be fortunate enough to find some better means of travel than on foot, but now it is the only means. Come.” He slung a strap over his shoulder, grasped his stick and started toward the door. To the strap was secured a valise, and he bore another in his hand. He did not cast one look behind, but went on to the gate, Lucie following with Pom Pom at her heels. In the rear came Paulette burdened with baskets, packages, bundles done up in handkerchiefs. Over her head and shoulders she wore the little black crocheted shawl which she was seldom without. She had on stout shoes, a blue stuff skirt, a jacket and an apron with capacious pockets. From her waist dangled a pair of headless fowls which she had not taken time to dress. From her neck, hanging by a stout cord, was appended a bottle of wine. One basket she carried on her head. From it protruded a long loaf of bread.

“I will close the door, Paulette,” said Lucie, turning back.

Paulette was too weighed down by her impedimenta to give her accustomed shrug, though she said. “What matter? Those boches will enter anyhow.”

Lucie felt a sudden sensation as of a clutch at her throat at this remark and as she saw Mousse placidly washing his face where he sat on the wall in the sunshine. “Adieu, adieu, my dear Mousse, dear home, dear garden,” she whispered.

A little whimper from Pom Pom was followed almost immediately by an ominous roar of guns. The enemy was coming nearer. At the crash of a bomb exploding in a just deserted street the long line of refugees hastened their steps.

Just ahead Lucie saw Annette with her grandfather who was helping along the feeble steps of his wife toward a ramshackle carriage which stood waiting for them. Everything in the way of a vehicle had been pressed into service. A woman was pushing a perambulator whose occupant, a little six months old baby, was almost hidden by the goods and chattels packed about him. Mothers hurried the tripping steps of their children. Old men hobbled haltingly. One decrepit old soul trundled in a wheelbarrow her more decrepit old husband. Pigs, cows, sheep, geese, turkeys had part in the procession. Little children hugged pet chickens or rabbits. Some had birds in cages; others clung fast to a favorite doll or a wooden horse.

The roar of the guns sounded more and more threatening. Fires flared up. There was the noise of crashing walls as the company moved on, on, down the road toward safety, leaving home and all its beloved associations behind them.

CHAPTER IV
A LONELY NIGHT

FOOTSORE, weary, hour after hour Lucie dragged herself along. The little bundle, which at first seemed not too great a weight, at last became intolerably heavy. One by one Paulette disposed of her bundles. Mons. Du Bois staggered under the valises, but refused to give them up. Poor little Pom Pom faithfully followed his mistress. At times he would lie down quite exhausted but always he caught up with his friends.

At last came along a cart drawn by two stout horses whose driver hailed them. “Ah, Mons. Du Bois, this is a sad journey for you,” he said. “I can perhaps give you a lift.”

Mons. Du Bois hesitated. “You are very kind, my friend,” he said at last. “It is not I who need the lift, but if you could take these valises a short distance it would ease my old back. In my soldiering days I could carry a much heavier weight. I tried in vain to hire some sort of conveyance, but everything was spoken for. My youthful strength has forsaken me, I fear.”

“I can make room for you,” insisted the man.

“Not for me, but for my granddaughter, perhaps.”

“Then mademoiselle?” The man turned to Lucie.

She shook her head. “No, no, I am young and strong. I prefer it should be my grandfather. We can travel along slowly, grandpère, and meet you farther on, by nightfall.”

“We shall not be traveling very fast with our load,” said the driver, “and we shall not more than make the next village where is the station. It was still untouched from last reports and I hope one can travel by rail the rest of the way. Come, monsieur, better mount the cart.”

Mons. Du Bois argued still further, but at last consented to accept the man’s kind offer. The old man was very weary and that wound which he had received in his soldiering days still gave him discomfort.

“We can relieve you a little of your load, too, my good woman,” the man told Paulette. “Let us have one of those heavy baskets.” Nothing loath Paulette handed up a basket, and the wagon moved on, the two sturdy horses quite equal to the added weight.

The Le Bruns, whom at first they had outdistanced, passed them some time before, Mons. Le Brun having been able to persuade the man with the ramshackle carriage, for a goodly sum, to take them in, although it seemed as if any moment the carriage might break down or the horse give out, so many were the passengers. Annette had waved her hand as they drove past.

“Are you going to Paris?” asked Lucie.

“No,” Annette called back. “We are going to my grandmother’s sister. She will be glad to take us in.”

It was something to know where Annette was going, Lucie thought, although she would turn aside a little later on, and her destination was nowhere near Paris. It must be to Victor’s home they were going. It was a pity that Pom Pom could not have gone with them, Lucie reflected.

She continued to plod stolidly along with Paulette. They spoke little. It took all their energies to keep up the steady pace. Finally Lucie found herself saying over dully: “At the next village we shall meet grandfather and take the train.” Evidently the same thought was in Paulette’s mind, for she turned after a while to say: “It cannot be much farther, little one. By sundown we should arrive.”

“Where do we sleep, Paulette?”

“Who knows? There must be some spot. No doubt Monsieur will arrange for that before we come. There is no question but we shall sleep well.”

This was comforting and spurred Lucie’s lagging tread to a brisker one. Pom Pom toiled patiently along behind her. Once in a while he stopped short, looked back, then took up his line of march, his eyes fixed steadfastly upon the track of his mistress.

At last as the sun was setting they heard a shout ahead, then a confused murmur of voices raised high in a clamor of discontent.

“What can it be, Paulette?” cried Lucie, stopping short.

“We shall see,” Paulette answered laconically.

They went on a little farther, reaching a slight rise in the road. Paulette stood still, shaded her eyes and looked toward the village of their destination. “Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, “there is no more a station,” for beyond them were shattered walls, torn tracks, smoking ruins.

Lucie sank down on the ground and burst into tears from sheer fatigue and disappointment. Pom Pom crept close to her, licking her hands and whining his sympathy. “What shall we do? What shall we do?” moaned the girl. “I am so tired, Paulette, oh, so tired. I do not see how I can walk another step.”

“I know, my child, I know. Let me think for a moment.” The brave woman looked keenly around. Not far away was a cow shed which had escaped destruction. “I cannot leave you here by the roadside,” mused Paulette. “Let us go to the little shed, my dear one. I can leave you there while I go to hunt up Monsieur. It is evident that there is no inn left in that village, but one never knows what may be found till he seeks. Come, we will examine that cow shed.”

They left the road, turned into a field, red with poppies, and reached the modest shelter to find it, if not very clean, at least empty. Some bits of rope hanging from a nail, and a pile of straw gave sole evidence of any former presence, if one does not include the barnyard odor.

“It is not a palace,” declared Paulette, “but it is a shelter and out of the way. I think the owners have fled, so one may rest assured that it will not be invaded. Rest here, child, but do not permit yourself to be seen. I will leave the baskets and bundles so as to be the quicker in returning. The little dog will be a protection.”

“From what?” asked Lucie in alarm.

“From nothing,” returned Paulette with a wry smile. “From frogs in the pond, crickets in the grass maybe.”

Thus reassured Lucie took a seat on the pile of straw just inside the door while Paulette deposited the baskets near by, Pom Pom looking interestedly on.

As Paulette started off with many assurances of a speedy return. Pom Pom looked questioningly after her. Was he to go, too? His eyes inquired of Lucie.

“No, no, Pom, you are to stay with me,” she told him, and with a sigh of content the tired little creature dropped down on the straw, and, with head on paws, went off to sleep.

It was very quiet. For a while one could not realize that so lately war had been so close at hand, that shrieking bombs had flown overhead, that screaming of shells, booming of guns, whir of airplanes had disturbed this peace, and had wrought destruction in passing this little corner of the world.

The sun went down leaving clouds of flaming red which turned to pallid gray. Frogs croaked. Crickets chirped. Once or twice there was a distant roar of guns. Lucie wondered sorrowfully if it came from her town or some other. She began to feel very hungry, but concluded to wait for Paulette who should return at any moment. It grew darker and darker, but no Paulette.

“If I wait till it grows any darker,” decided Lucie, “I shall not be able to find the food.” She moved over to the basket, remembering that Paulette had supplied, for their noonday meal, bread, butter, cheese, roasted chicken. As Pom Pom heard her at the basket he pricked up his ears, then arose with a yawn and wagged his tail.

“You are hungry, too, poor Pom Pom,” said Lucie lifting the lid of the basket. “Ciel!” she exclaimed as she peered down into the contents of the basket, “it is not food at all which we have here. The basket which held that must have gone with grandfather in the wagon. What a misfortune! No doubt Paulette thought she handed up the one which holds the utensils. She was flurried and the two are exactly alike. I wish she would return so we could join those others and get the food. I have half a mind to go on. To be sure I could carry never these things, but perhaps they would be safe here and some one could return for them.”

It was a comfort to have the little dog to talk to, Lucie considered as she kept up a murmuring conversation. “It is very strange that she does not come, Pom Pom,” she said. “Surely it is not so far. One can see several lights quite plainly. Hark! there is another of those sharp reports; it is the third. They sound much nearer than those other rumbling growls. Figure to yourself, my Pom Pom, what it must be to live in the midst of the cannonading as my poor papa did. I wonder, oh, I wonder when I shall see him, my mother also. What would they say to behold my plight? Grandfather, of course, will let them know when we reach Paris. It seems very far away, that city of Paris. Why does not Paulette come, Pom Pom? It grows so very dark, she will not be able to find her way. If one had a lantern or a bit of candle, though perhaps it is better not, for as it is we are quite hidden as Paulette charged me to be.”

Pom Pom from time to time wagged his tail in response to the talk, but he had prowled around and had discovered a discarded bone which gave him some satisfaction and to which he gave his best attention, bare as it was. At last when Lucie had lapsed into a silence, and the darkness had settled down upon them, he drew very close and lay down with his head in the lap of his mistress, once in a while giving her hand a reassuring lick.

As the moments passed Lucie grew more and more concerned. She was of two minds about staying. Suppose she started off in the dark, she might lose her way and miss Paulette altogether. Paulette would be distracted at not finding her. Suppose she stayed. It was an appalling prospect to remain in that dreary place by herself. She who had never spent a night away from the safety of her own roof, to be utterly alone in a place whose very name was unknown to her, could not tell what terrors might befall her. She resolved that she would keep watch all night. Paulette might arrive at any moment. She propped herself up against a corner of the shed as best she could, her bundle behind her, Pom Pom at her feet. The stars were coming out. The frogs piped up again, then the crickets. Presently another sudden sound of explosion. “Paulette, Paulette, why don’t you come? It is so lonely here, so—dark—so dark.” Pom Pom stirred. Lucie put out her hand wanderingly to rest it on his head as he moved closer up by her side. Her head dropped till it rested on her bundle, then she was not conscious of anything more. Little maid and little dog slept the night through. Once only Pom Pom stirred, pricked up his ears, sat up and listened, then snuggled back with a sigh and went off again into a sound sleep.

Victor spread the doubled paper upon the spot. Lucie put out her little slim foot, stepped lightly and was over.

It was early, early in the morning when Lucie was aroused by a sudden squawk, a wild flutter of wings. She sat up and rubbed her eyes to behold a much ruffled hen disappearing out of the doorway and cackling her best. Dazed with sleep Lucie thought at first she must be dreaming, but the cackling fully aroused her. She looked around, bewildered. “Where in the world am I?” she exclaimed. Then the events of the day before came back to her. She stood up, shaking the straw from her dress. “Of all things!” she exclaimed, “I have spent the entire night in this dirty place, and have slept like a Christian. Who could believe it? Thank heaven there is no door, so one could at least have fresh air. Where is Paulette, and where indeed is Pom Pom?”

She went out into the field to look around. Dew lay on the grass. The poppy buds were unfolding. A lark sang soaring overhead. The hen, having concluded her triumphant remarks, was on the search for breakfast and was picking around quite as if all her friends and neighbors had not been carried off.

“It is most strange what has become of that Paulette,” murmured Lucie, looking more and more troubled. “Since she has not returned to me it is plain that I must go in search of her. As for Pom Pom, he will not have strayed far. I have no doubt but he will come back to me. Now that it is daylight and I am rested it should not be difficult to get to the station if I had but something to eat before I go. What a thing to have done to sleep all night when I meant to keep watch. Well, as one may say: Avise la fin: consider the end. I am refreshed, though I would be more so if I had had a mouthful of supper and could look forward to a bite of breakfast. I should probably be exhausted but for the sleep. As for Pom Pom, no doubt he has gone off to forage for himself. What a thing to have the nose of a dog so that one can pry into corners and so discover food. If they had left the cow behind there would be the milk, though if the cow had remained she might have objected to sharing her bed with me. I am very sure I should be one to feel the same objection. However, we dispose of that since there is no cow. Neither is there anything to eat that I can discover. One cannot feed on poppies nor on grass. I wish Pom Pom would come. I should not then feel so deserted and I must try to walk to that village. I may faint before I get there; I feel so empty, but I must make the effort. Anything is better than staying here to starve. What would my parents say if they knew I am without a breakfast altogether?”

She sat down forlornly in the doorway, continuing her soliloquy. “If one but had a piece of chocolate to nibble. If I had but saved that which I had in my bag when I started, but, improvident that I am! it was all gone before night. Well, there is nothing to do but make myself take to the road, although of a truth I must confess I do not like to undertake a journey on an empty stomach.”

She sat puzzling over the situation, when her eyes fell on the little hen pecking industriously around. She jumped to her feet exclaiming: “Of course! Where there is a cackle there must be an egg. I will hunt for it.”

She returned to the interior of the shed, hunting among the straw, but nothing came of this. There was a small shelf high up in one corner, Lucie stood on tiptoe to look at it. There were some wisps of straw upon it which well might serve for a nest. She felt sure that it was from this place the hen had flown. She tried to touch the spot but was unable to reach so far.

“There is no use in trying to pull down the hay,” she said to herself, “for of what use would a broken egg be, unless Pom Pom should choose to lap it up? If I could only find something to stand on I might reach it.” She tried to clamber up by means of the crannies in the wall, but the shelf was a corner one and in such position that she could get at it no better and was obliged to give up this attempt. Next she went outside and began to look around for a box, a stone, anything which she could stand upon and so come within reach of the coveted prize. At last she managed to get hold of a stone which she laboriously rolled to the spot. She stepped upon it, and began feeling around, but her hand found nothing but the hay; if eggs there were they were still out of reach.

This latest disappointment was too much for her. Utterly tired out, faint and distressed, she sat down and began to weep forlornly. These extra efforts had taken all her reserve strength and she felt sick and weak.

Meanwhile down the road was trotting Pom Pom who had been on a voyage of discovery. If breakfast would not come to him he must go find the breakfast, was his way of settling matters. So he had started forth as soon as he realized that Lucie was awake and in no present need of his defense. First he scared up a flock of birds but these offered no special inducement, for he was not out for a frolic. Next he scratched madly away at a stone under which a field mouse had hidden, but the mouse was too wary for him, and he gave up this sport. Pretty soon he came to a little pool of water where he refreshed himself and felt better. Once in a while he stopped to look back at the cow shed to make sure that his mistress had not left it. He stood undecided at a turn of the road. If he went farther he would lose sight of the cow shed; if he retraced his steps he was still breakfastless, and it would prove a bootless adventure. He decided to go on. His nose was to be depended upon quite as much as his eyes and his mistress could not get away without his ability to track her. Victor was quite right when he called him a wise little dog, for in course of time he proved himself worthy the praise.

It was not very long before he came upon something which gave him complete satisfaction, and after an intimate interview with the object, he began dragging it back along the road over which he had come. Once in a while he lay down and employed himself in gnawing at one end of the burden, thus balancing the weight by disposing of some on the inside, some on the out.

In course of time Lucie lifted her teary eyes and looked off in the direction of the road over which Pom Pom was traveling. She saw a small animal trotting along, stopping now and then to get a better grasp of the thing he carried.

“Pom Pom! It is Pom!” cried Lucie starting to her feet. “He is bringing something. I wonder what in the world he has found.” She gave the whistle which always brought him. He tossed up his head, gave a quick bark and seemed inclined to relinquish the prize he had brought thus far. He stood over it for a moment, then concluded he would not abandon it, for he took a fresh hold and came on.

Lucie ran forward to meet him. He saw her coming and stopped to stand guard over his capture, wagging his tail violently when she called to him. “He seems very proud of himself,” said Lucie. “I must find out why. Pom Pom, what is it you have there?” she asked.

Pom Pom danced forward barking joyously, then ran back to his booty.

Lucie stooped down to examine what lay upon the ground. “Bread!” she exclaimed. “What a dog!” for before her was what remained of a long loaf of bread; evidently it had fallen from the basket of some refugee, possibly from that very missing basket. There remained only about half the original loaf. The two ends had been gnawed off and it was no better for having been dragged through the dusty road. But bread it was, and at sight of it tears again rose to Lucie’s eyes. “You dear dog! You darling Pom,” she murmured, caressing him. “What have you done for me, and they would have had me leave you behind! Ah, my Pom, no power can now separate us. The bread is not very clean, to be sure, but how much better than nothing. You shall have the outside while I will take the rest. There are knives in that basket, I know, for I discovered them when I was hoping to find food. If one could but get at that nest, one would not fare so badly in spite of the egg being raw. Come, Pom Pom!” and Pom Pom came.

She sat down with renewed courage, pared off the crusts and gave them to Pom Pom, who, after all, was not so hungry as he had been. It was rather a stuffy meal, but every crumb of it was devoured when Lucie at last was ready to start out. She carried only her own bundle. The rest of the luggage she must leave, likewise the unattainable egg, which remained to lure back the little hen to her nest. The hen, indeed, was the sole living creature to whom Lucie could make her adieux. One may never know the fate of that particular hen nor her eggs, though it is to be hoped they did their part in the preservation of life in that devastated region.

CHAPTER V
WELL MET

IT was with many misgivings that Lucie started out upon her walk to the village. Pom Pom, however, had nothing upon his mind after having settled the food question for the moment. All that was required of him was to keep his mistress in sight, but Lucie had far more anxious thoughts as she went on. She was now sure that something had happened to Paulette whose devotion to the family would permit nothing short of utter disability from keeping her overnight. As for her grandfather, Lucie felt that here too was another cause for worry. What had become of him? Was she to be left utterly alone? she who had always lived such a peaceful, protected life? With Paulette and her grandfather vanished mysteriously, how could she reach Paris? and even supposing she were able to do this, what would she do when she got there? She must make every effort to find her mother and father. How would she best set about doing this? She felt herself such a tiny speck in such a big world. Finally her lips took to forming only the words: “Brave, I must be brave,” as she trudged on. The distance was greater than she had believed, and with no more nourishment than part of a loaf of bread she did not feel herself any too well fortified for so long a walk.

She had reached the outskirts of the town without seeing any one. Except for the distant roar of guns, the occasional crash of a collapsing wall, the far-off whir of an airplane, there were no disturbing sounds.

Presently a figure at last appeared coming toward her, a man in the red and blue uniform of a poilu. Pom Pom, who had been following laggingly with lolling tongue, suddenly pricked up his ears and dashed forward barking joyously.

The soldier stopped to pat the little dog who frantically jumped upon him, licking his hands and whimpering with delight. “But where did you come from, my Pom Pom? Are you then lost?” Lucie heard the man say as she came nearer.

She stood still, not recognizing the figure in military dress, then she herself ran forward almost as joyously as Pom Pom had done. “Victor! Victor!” she cried. “What good fortune is this. What a happiness to meet you!”

“A happiness, is it?” He laughed and showed his strong white teeth. “And what are you doing here, you and Pom Pom, so far from home? This is a strange meeting indeed. Where are the rest, your mother, grandfather and all?”

“Ah, that is what I do not know. I am in great distress, Victor.”

“Is it so? Then tell me what is wrong.” His face went grave as he took her bundle from her and looked into the weary little face whose eyes were so mournful with dark shadows under them. “Poor little one, you do look as if you had traveled far,” he said pityingly. “Come, sit down here by the roadside and tell me all about it.”

So Lucie poured forth her sad little tale, concluding with: “And but for Pom Pom I might have starved.”

Victor’s hand fondled the little dog who lay contentedly at his feet. “But my aunt and uncle, my cousin Annette, where are they?” he asked.

“They turned aside and I hope are quite safe with your own grandparents in your town, Victor.”

“Good! That is very good. I am glad to know this, so then, if we do not discover this Paulette nor your grandfather, I can take you there where you will be not only safe but will be very welcome.”

“That is a great relief, Victor,” Lucie gave a sigh. “But first this Paulette must be found. What do you think could have happened to her, and to my grandfather?”

“One cannot tell. I hope nothing very serious. There were explosions, you know, after the station was bombed. There are still walls falling in the town.”

“And they were there? Oh, Victor, do you think it possible that they are killed?”

“Let us hope not.”

“But something very serious must have happened or they would not have left me all night alone. Oh, what sorrows, what sorrows! My father wounded, my grandfather and dear old Paulette perhaps no more.”

Victor patted her hand. “Do not cross that bridge yet, little one. I shall not leave you till I see you are perfectly safe. I have thirty-six hours’ leave before reporting to my captain. It is to-day that I wear my uniform for the first time,” he added proudly.

“And very becoming it is,” said Lucie trying to smile in spite of her fears. “Such a great fortune it is, Victor, to meet some one I know.”

“Of course. That goes without the saying. Allons, then, Forward! March!” He did not say that his leave was to have been spent with his family, and that in returning to the village he had just left he probably would have to give up his trip to the earlier destination, because of lack of time.

As they neared the little town Lucie saw wisps of smoke rising from heaps of ruins. Such walls as were standing showed gaping holes where windows had been. Scarce a house stood intact. The little church was riddled, only from a niche a sorrowful Madonna looked down upon the piles of shattered stones which lay upon the pavement where her worshipers had knelt.

Lucie clutched Victor’s arm. “Do you suppose they have done the same to our village, to our house?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders, unable to reassure her. As they entered the forsaken streets they came upon a few stragglers poking among the ruins with the hope of discovering some of their lost treasures. In what remained of the church, cots had been set up for the wounded, and here doctors and Red Cross nurses were busy.

As they stopped in front of this place a voice shrilled out: “But I tell you, monsieur, I am neither ill nor insane. It is as I say and I must be gone at once. You must not detain me.”

Lucie gave a start. “Listen!” she cried.

“I appeal to you, madame,” the voice went on. “Figure to yourself a daughter of yours, alone, stricken with terror, not knowing where to go, feeling herself utterly deserted. It is of all things impossible that I should be detained. Bah, what is a cut on the head? A nothing. Yes, to be sure I was insensible, but at this moment I have my faculties, and I am so weak that I cannot make that little journey. You will send? But the child in that foul cow shed all night! Who knows if she be not ill or has left the place and is wandering about lost and forsaken?”

“Paulette!” cried Lucie darting up the steps of the battered church, from which came the voice. “Paulette, are you then here? It is I, Lucie.”

From the doorway, which was scarce more than a gaping hole rushed forth a stout figure with bandaged head and torn clothing. “My little one! The blessed child! It is she herself,” cried Paulette grasping Lucie by the hands and drawing her inside. “Monsieur the doctor, Madame the nurse, behold the child. She is here. Is it not a miracle of le bon Dieu?” Paulette, excited, half laughing, half crying, held tightly to Lucie.

The doctor and nurse stood by smiling appreciatively. “Tell us how you managed to get here safely, mademoiselle,” said the doctor.

So Lucie told her tale which was interrupted by many exclamations from Paulette, but was listened to with interest by all who heard.

“Surely the saints had you in keeping,” said Paulette, when the story was ended. “For there is danger everywhere and in coming here you might have been killed as I nearly was.”

“Tell me of that,” urged Lucie. “Were you badly hurt, Paulette? Are you suffering, my poor one?”

“Not now so much. It was this way that it happened, ma petite: I was coming into the town. I had arrived as you may say. Suddenly a great noise, a crash. I knew no more till I find myself within these walls, if walls one can still call them. I am at first unable to collect my thoughts. At last I realize that here am I with a hole in the head and so weak that when I stand I am afflicted with a dizziness. I wish to go to you, but no, this is impossible. I try to explain. This, too, is difficult. It is then the middle of the night, I know not what hour. I lie down again and sleep, perhaps. When I awake I am given food. I am better, and then I begin to implore that I be allowed to return to you. These, though good and kind, refuse to permit me to go. Tell me, little one, how did you fare in that so unclean place? You, of course had food from the basket.”

“But no, Paulette, for alas, it was the wrong basket. The one in which was the food, that went with grandfather.”

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Paulette. “How I am a stupid? What a sot animal, a dindon I am not to have perceived that, and then I had not this wound upon the head which would have given me some excuse for stupidity.”

“But you realize, Paulette, that those two baskets were exactly alike.”

“That matters nothing, for the fact remains that you were without food. Monsieur, Madame, she starves, this child. She has eaten nothing since noon yesterday.”

“Oh yes, but I have,” Lucie hastened to assure her. “You will scarce believe what I have to tell you, and will say it is nothing short of a miracle indeed.” And she proceeded to tell of Pom Pom’s achievement to a still more interested audience.

“This dog, this very clever creature, where is he?” asked the doctor when she had ended her recital.

“He is here,” Lucie told him waving her hand to where, on outside, Pom Pom was quite content to wait with Victor.

“We must see this so clever animal,” declared the doctor, going to the foot of the steps where Victor was sitting.

“And my grandfather?” said Lucie turning again to Paulette. “He is safe? He is here?”

“He is safe, let us hope. None were allowed to remain when the authorities evacuated the town. All were forced to leave. To be sure, I hear there were some who hid themselves and would not go. This Paulette, that you see, she stayed because perforce she must. It is perhaps a Providence which sent that blow upon the head or out I must have gone whether I would or not, and then what would have become of you?”

“There was Victor,” said Lucie thoughtfully.

“Oh, yes, Victor. La la, there was Victor,” exclaimed Paulette marching off. Lucie could not tell whether offended or not.

But presently she returned with the nurse whom Lucie had first seen and who brought a bowl of soup which Lucie received gratefully, and which she felt inclined to eat to the very last drop for it was hot and comforting. But she left a few spoonfuls saying to the nurse, “I may give this to Pom Pom?”

“Eat it all, my dear,” replied the nurse smiling. “We can find something else for a little dog who is so faithful.”

Pom Pom provided for, the next thing was to consult Victor about various matters. There were the things left in the cow shed which Paulette declared she could not live without. How were they to recover these? and where would they be liable to find Mons. Du Bois? Lucie put these questions anxiously.

Victor thus appealed to felt himself more than ever thrust into the rôle of protector and gave up then and there his last hope of getting home on this furlough. He could not desert Lucie. It would never do to start her out upon a journey with Paulette who was in no condition to travel on foot, and there did not appear any one to whose care he might intrust a young girl and a wounded woman. He pondered over the situation, Lucie watching him anxiously.

“Listen,” he said at last, smiling down at the troubled girl, his kind brown eyes alight with sympathy, “I think we can work our way out of this difficulty. Trust it all to me. At present you are quite safe here. I will go back for those things, if needs be, but first I will inquire about this lost grandfather who, no doubt, is as concerned about you as you about him. I will see if I can discover something of him. Let us see, he was traveling in a wagon with one you know. Is this right?”

“Yes, he was with Gustave Foucher, a tradesman in our town and whom we all know well as a kind, good man. Gustave has his family with him, and some household goods, yet he was willing to take grandfather, too. The wagon is drawn by two stout black horses.”

“Good, we will then see what we can learn of this Gustave Foucher, and then I will report to you, then it will be time enough to attend to those baskets in the cow shed.”

“Oh, Victor, how good you are,” cried Lucie, gratefully.

“La la, who is good? Not any one really. I do this because it amuses, it entertains; it is out of the day’s routine, an adventure, as one might say. Pom Pom had better stay with you while I pursue my investigations.”

He went off to follow up his course of action, leaving Lucie to reënter the church where Paulette was busying herself in waiting on those more helpless than herself. It was a gruesome place, Lucie thought, with its row of cots in which lay groaning sufferers, some too severely hurt to hope for recovery, and some who would never again be whole. This was war, her first intimate acquaintance with its horrors. In such a place perhaps her father lay at this moment. She prayed that he might be spared and that her mother was at his side, as she knelt for a moment before an untouched altar. When she arose to her feet she saw Paulette trying to make more comfortable a patient close by.

“Can’t I help, too?” whispered Lucie.

Paulette shook her head, but one of the nurses beckoned to her and she followed her to the sacristy where a sort of kitchen was established. “I wouldn’t stay in there,” said the nurse. “Perhaps you can help here. You can, maybe, wash dishes.”

“Oh, I can do that,” Lucie assured her and diligently set to work, feeling thankful that something useful was her part to perform.

She was not long at her occupation, however, for before she had quite finished the pile before her, Victor came back.

“Your friend, the young man, has returned,” some one came to tell her.

Lucie looked inquiringly at the young woman who was in charge. She nodded encouragingly. “Go, my dear. You have been very helpful,” said the woman.

She gave up the towel she had been using and went softly out, tiptoeing past the row of cots. Victor was waiting on the steps. “What news?” inquired Lucie.

“All’s well,” he answered. “That grandfather has been through here. He left word with the man who has been station master but who no more is so because there is no station. With this person he has left word that he is not allowed to stop and is going on to the next point where one can get a train, and there you are to meet him. If by any chance you miss him, you and Paulette are to proceed direct to Paris and communicate with him at the house of one Jacques Moulin.”

“Oh yes, I know this Jacques person. He came often to buy goods at the factory and would sometimes come to dine with us.”

“He is a young man?” asked Victor.

“No, quite an old one, not so old perhaps as grandfather but enough old, for he has grown-up children.”

“That is well,” said Victor with satisfaction. “So then we consider the next thing.”

“I suppose that is Marchons again.”

“Yes, but not on foot. That will not do. I shall have the honor of being your coachman.”

“What do you mean? There can be no coaches left here.”

“You may not be overweeningly proud of your equipage, but it is better than none. At the present moment it lacks a wheel, but that is a simple matter to adjust, and good fortune for us, for because of this mishap to the ancient vehicle, it has been discarded, left behind, so to speak.”

“But how can one travel with but three wheels, or is it one?”

“There are still three, two quite good. From the third, one or two spokes are missing, but that is a small loss. There must be other wheels belonging to other carts which are no longer in existence. I purpose to find one. If it does not match exactly, that makes no difference.”

“But do you purpose to be steed as well as coachman?”

“Not at all. Behind a dilapidated house in a more dilapidated stable resides at the moment a small donkey who in some manner has been forgotten, or rather he was left behind because of the débris piled around him. No doubt his owner fled in haste and could not dig him out. I passed by the spot and examined it, discovering that it will not be so difficult as appears to extricate the beast, so I shall dig him out and there we have an equipage not to be despised, and much better than a wheelbarrow in which I might have had to bundle you and that poor Paulette.”

“Not me, for I could walk.”

“Part way, maybe, but there is no question of that as I see it.”

“What ingenuity, Victor. Who would have thought this out but you?”

“It has been great amusement, I assure you. Bravo! How I shall enjoy driving Master Donkey. He seems a strong little beast, and was glad to see me, the coquin. You should have heard his hee haw when I spoke to him. Now about Paulette, is she able to travel?”

“She is fast recovering. She was stunned by the blow she received from a falling stone and was weak from loss of blood. It was wonderful that she escaped being killed outright. I am sure she will recover even more rapidly when she hears of our good fortune in having such a courier as Mons. Victor Guerin. It is all very dreadful, of course, Victor, and last night I felt as if I could never smile again, but now that my grandfather is safe, Paulette is better, and I have had some food my spirits have risen.”

“Good! then perhaps you will be willing to go with me to recover that donkey. Two are better than one at a task like that. Once the animal is extricated we will feed him, then we will find a wheel for the cart and can be off for a visit to that cow shed that you were so loath to leave.”

“Detestable spot, how can you say I was loath to leave it?”

“When one spends an entire night in a place it is a sign that it has its attractions.”

“Stop teasing. I stayed because there was nothing else to do, as you well know. I never wish to see the place again.”

“Ah, but you will have to go with me to show me where it is.” Victor gave her a merry glance.

Lucie shrugged her shoulders. “Well, it may be that so much is necessary, and perhaps you can discover if there are really any eggs in that nest. That is something I should like very much to know.”

It required some argument to convince Paulette that Lucie was necessary to the expedition, but at last she was made to realize that this was not a time for conventionalities and so the two young people started off together, first to get out the donkey.

CHAPTER VI
MORE WAYS THAN ONE

THE rescue of the donkey was not quite so easy a task as it looked to be, but the two young people went at it heartily, Victor removing the heavier stones and timbers which blocked the way, and Lucie undertaking the smaller pieces. Master Donkey, whom Victor dubbed “Long Ears” for want of a better name, meanwhile looked on attentively, his ears moving in accord with his interest.

At last after an hour of rather exhausting labor, Victor exclaimed: “There, Lucie, I think I can climb over now and get at Long Ears. Donkeys are more sure-footed than horses and he can mount this pile of stuff and pick his way along without doubt. You might stand there and entice him with a handful of fresh grass.”

Lucie hunted around for such green stuff as she could collect from crevices and corners, while Victor led forth the prisoner.

“Now he must have some food and drink,” declared Victor. “He must stand in great need of it, poor fellow, and while he is partaking we will get that wheel.”

“Where is it?” asked Lucie.

Victor laughed. “Ah, that is the joke of it. I haven’t an idea where it is. I simply have faith to believe there is one; there must be. Who ever saw a town that did not contain at least one discarded cart wheel in the out-of-the-way corner of some stable-yard, or some such place? I shall prowl around until I find it; that is all. Do you want to prowl, too?”

Lucie declared herself eager to go with him on this quest, and they started out, making inquiries as they went along and at last coming upon the very odd corner that Victor had prophesied and where they found the cart wheel of their desire. It was rather a dubious looking affair, and its circumference was slightly less than those on the cart which Victor had secured, but he declared it would serve, and, with the help of an old man, managed to fasten it in place. Then they started off for the cow shed in high good humor.

“It does not go badly, this cart,” maintained Victor, “and as for our friend. Long Ears, he is none the worse for having served his time in prison.”

“Ah, do not speak of him in that way,” chided Lucie. “It is as if he had been a criminal.”

“He may be, who knows what evil deeds he may have done in his lifetime.”

But Lucie would none of this, and so they argued and made merry upon that same road over which Lucie had traveled so wearily and despairingly a few hours before.

They found everything intact at the shed. Victor lifted baskets and bundles into the cart. “Now we will hunt for those eggs,” he said, “and we may as well take the hen, too. Some one can make use of her, and she will find it hard to scratch for a living here.”

“The eggs first. I am so very curious about those eggs, Victor. To think that after all I shall find them.”

“Shall I climb up, or do you want to see for yourself?”

“I would very much like to see for myself.”

“Then you shall do so. I will lift you up so you can see.”

Lucie looked rather doubtful at this. She was not sure that she would approve of this way to discovery. “Suppose you should let me fall, or at least hold me so unsteadily that I should let the eggs fall.”

Victor took her objections good-naturedly. “Then shall I climb up?”

“Ye-es, I suppose you will have to,” admitted Lucie.

“I have it,” cried Victor wanting to indulge her. “I can back the cart into the shed. There is plenty of room, and you can stand on that and be perfectly sure of your footing.”

“Oh, Victor, what a perfectly lovely idea,” cried Lucie. And in a few minutes the cart was standing beneath the shelf while Lucie climbed upon it. She laughed down at Victor. “It cannot be said that one’s footing is so very sure after all, for the cart is so rickety.”

“I think it will hold out. I will stand by Long Ears so he will not bolt at a critical moment.”

Feeling herself doubly safe Lucie turned to view the shelf and what was thereon. But the instant the head appeared above the top came again a wild flutter of wings, and a second squawking hen, disturbed in her retreat, flew in an agony of fright down from her nest and directly upon the back of the donkey. Victor made a grab at her as she went sailing by in a second flight, and Master Long Ears no longer feeling a detaining hand, kicked up his heels and went clattering out the door, bearing Lucie frantically trying to keep her feet and to get hold of the reins.

Fortunately the donkey once outside stopped at sight of green fields and began deliberately to crop the grass. Lucie collapsed in a fit of mirth upon the floor of the cart. Victor came running out, at first alarmed, and then ready to join in her laughter.

“It is not meant that I should get at those eggs,” declared Lucie. “You will have to get them, Victor.”

Monsieur was wounded, night came, no one knew that he lay there, there were so many. The little dog knew and he went out to find him.

“But what a remarkable hen,” remarked Victor, “to lay two eggs in a day.”

Lucie went off again into another burst of laughter. “But, no,” she cried, “it was not the same hen. That other was brown; this is speckled. There are then two of them.”

“Ma foi!” cried Victor, “one does not have to go far for a joke even in these days.”

He returned to the shed, climbed up to the shelf, and presently reappeared with his pockets bulging. “My first foraging expedition,” he announced, “and here are the fruits, a half dozen eggs. We will commandeer these, a reserve for future use. We may be glad enough of them on our way. As for those hens they will have to fend for themselves, for there is no time to hunt them.” He deposited the eggs in one of the baskets, they climbed back again into the cart, undertook the task of persuading Long Ears to leave his pastures new, and finally they were on their way back to the town, arriving without mishap; then, with the consent of such authority as still existed, they set forth on the more precarious expedition to the next station.

Victor realized that time was short and it would be a close shave for him, for he must get back to camp at the proper hour. He had promised to return the borrowed cart and donkey, but in doing this, he resolved that he must let the future take care of itself. If he could not return the borrowed articles in person, some one else could, and that was all there was to it.

They began the second stage of their journey quite confidently. Life again appeared worth living. Lucie sat by Victor’s side on the length of board which served as a seat. Paulette, perched on a similar board, was surrounded by baskets and bundles. She held firmly to her green cotton umbrella from which she had not parted in all this time. Sometimes she used it as a staff, sometimes it was laid across her shoulders on the top of a pack she carried, again it found a place on the top of a basket, but wherever it was Paulette evidently did not mean to lose sight of it. Having renewed his strength the donkey trotted along bravely enough, but the cart was less satisfactory. The wheels spread apart in a manner that threatened collapse at any moment, while the added fourth caused a queer joggle, a sort of limp, as it were.

“It may not be the most luxurious way of riding,” observed Victor, “but if we get there it will suffice.”

“Oh, Victor, do you think there is any danger of our not getting there?” inquired Lucie in alarm.

Victor glanced down at the wavering wheel. “It will be good luck if we do,” he replied, then seeing Lucie’s look of dismay he added: “but the donkey is very strong; we can pile the luggage on him, then you and Paulette can take turns in riding whatever portion of the road we still have to travel.”

There was some comfort in this, and perhaps it was as well that Lucie was warned, for at last after a threatening squeak, and a more than ordinarily violent wabble, off came the wheel and went careering down a gully at the side of the road. The cart gave a lurch, but Victor was quick to spring out, and ran to the head of Long Ears who seemed to have it in his mind either to bolt or to kick out with his hind legs. He decided upon a mild performance of the latter feat, but his heels could do little damage to the already decrepit cart, and under Victor’s management he soon calmed down and stood meekly while he was being unharnessed.

“Nobody hurt,” announced Victor cheerfully, “and we have not so very far to go. I think we can manage it. Come, Paulette, let us have those baskets. We can strap them on Long Ears pannier-wise, and we can make a pillion of the contents of those bundles, or at least of part. We can lay those on his back first and the straps which we can make of the reins will hold them on.”

Paulette was quite used to a peasant manner of traveling, and lent a hand skillfully, refusing absolutely to be the first to ride, so to Lucie was given this honor.

Leaving the cart abandoned by the roadside they set off again, Lucie sitting easily upon her improvised saddle and rather enjoying the novelty. Victor walked by her side, declaring that one could not tell what tricks a donkey might suddenly develop and it was well that one should be on hand. At last Lucie declared that it was Paulette’s turn to ride, and though at first she protested violently, the old woman finally was persuaded that Lucie would be made uncomfortable if she continued to refuse, so she mounted Long Ears and in this way the little company at last arrived at their destination.

“Now,” said Victor, “the first thing is to discover Mons. Du Bois. If he be here I can leave you in safety.”

“And if he is not here?” said Lucie with some trepidation.

Victor looked troubled. “I am afraid I shall have to leave you in any case,” he answered slowly.

“O, Victor,” cried Lucie, “how can we get along without you?”

“Do you want him to be shot as a deserter?” asked Paulette severely. “He must get back to his regiment, and he has none too much time as it is.”

“Oh!” Lucie looked distressed. “I did not think, but—” She looked questioningly at Paulette.

“Do not distress yourself, my child,” returned Paulette imperturbably. “We shall get on. Monsieur, I beg that you will not embarrass yourself further. We are not the only women who must travel alone, and I have not a fear.”

“I trust to you, Paulette,” said Victor heartily. “You remain here. I shall not be gone long.”

Paulette dismounted from her steed and led him to one side where they would be less conspicuous. Lucie placed herself in a position to watch the street down which Victor had gone, and which led to the railway station. It was there that he intended first to go. He was as good as his word, for presently Lucie cried: “Here he comes, Paulette, and there is some one with him? If it should but be grandfather!”

Paulette looked searchingly at the two approaching figures. “But that it is not,” she declared. “That is neither the form nor the gait of Mons. Du Bois.”

Lucie drew a long sigh. “I did so hope,” she murmured.

In a few minutes Victor came up with a stout, middle-aged man. “This is Mons. Carriere,” he announced. “He will do all in his power to locate Mons. Du Bois. As for me, I find I must take a train in a few minutes, but I am glad to leave you in safe hands.”

“How can I thank you for all you have done,” said Lucie, with a look of regret in her eyes. “I wish you need not go, Victor, but I should like less your having to be shot.”

Mons. Carriere looked inquiringly at Paulette.

“Mademoiselle means that monsieur must return to his regiment,” she explained. “If you will believe it, monsieur has spent his entire leave in transforming himself into an escort for us.”

“It is incredible,” exclaimed Mons. Carriere, turning to look at Victor.

“But, I assure you, monsieur, it was my duty,” declared Victor. “Are we not in this war as much to protect our women as our land?”

“Well said, brave garçon,” cried Mons. Carriere, “but let me suggest, monsieur, that if you wish to make that train, your opportunity is very short.”

With that Victor grasped Lucie’s hands, kissed her upon either cheek, did the same to Paulette and was off at a run for the station. Lucie ran a short way the better to see the last of him, and stood where she could have a view of the train already to be heard approaching.

Paulette wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He is pure gold, that lad,” she said brokenly to Mons. Carriere. “Such courage, such cheerfulness, such invention! When I think that he may be fodder for cannon I cannot endure it.”

“It is such as he will save France,” returned Mons. Carriere. “We must be willing to let them go, to die, perhaps, for their country. Death is not the end.”

“You perhaps have no son to sacrifice,” returned Paulette.

“I have three,” replied he quietly, “and you, madame?”

“I have one and one only. He is a poilu like yonder lad.”

“But you do not weep that he gives himself for his country?”

“I weep in secret, but also I am proud that he was one of the first to go.”

The train was now moving out of the station. Paulette turned her back upon it, but Lucie stood waving farewells to Victor, who in response waved his adieux.

As Lucie came up Paulette wiped her eyes, turning to Mons. Carriere to say hastily: “Do not let us mention Monsieur Victor, if you please.”

“He has gone, Paulette,” cried Lucie. “Is he not fine and brave? Ah me, I wish—”

“Cela ne fait rien,” Paulette interrupted with a shrug of her shoulders. “The next thing is to find Mons. Du Bois. What is gone is gone.”

“Do you think it possible that my grandfather is here?” Lucie asked Mons. Carriere.

“It is very possible. This young poilu, who has just left, charged me to take you to a safe place, to house the donkey and to return it to one Jacques La Rue when opportunity came. Allons, then, to my house we go and then proceed to investigate. You are able to walk, madame? By the way, have you been hurt that your head is bound up in such fashion?”

“She has shed her blood for France,” cried Lucie. “That wound was caused by the enemy.”

“Ma foi, what a fantasie!” cried Paulette. “I assure you, monsieur, that my hurt was caused simply by a falling wall. I was passing; the wall gives way, the brick descends upon my head; that is all.”

“Ah, but the falling wall, that came from the bombs of the enemy,” persisted Lucie. “Is it not, monsieur, that she has suffered for France?”

“Most surely,” he answered. “She has been wounded, though indirectly, by the enemy, and so is to be honored as a soldier.”

“There,” exclaimed Lucie, “it is as I said, Paulette.”

“La la,” she responded, “this sort of argument is a thing to make one laugh, and quite aside from our business. Where is it we go, monsieur, without wasting more words or time?”

“We go to my house where you rest until I have completed my quest for Mons. Du Bois. If I do not discover him, then we will see what can be done about your pursuing your journey to Paris. Meanwhile you have nothing to do but make yourselves comfortable. My housekeeper will see to that, I assure you.”

“But, monsieur,” Paulette began protesting.

He lifted his hand to silence her. “It is nothing. In these days one takes what comes and says no word.”

They followed him up the street, turned a corner and halted before a house which reminded Lucie of her own home. A green gate set in a white wall led, probably, into just such another garden as she had left so regretfully. It was through this gate that they entered, and, true to Lucie’s expectations, the garden was there, holding the familiar trees and flowers which spoke to her of home. Her lips trembled and her eyes filled with tears. She stole a glance at Paulette whose face had a wooden expression. She was looking neither to the right nor left.

“Marianne,” called Mons. Carriere.

A stout, middle-aged woman came to a side door.

“We have guests,” announced Mons. Carriere. “See that they have everything to make them comfortable. They have passed through grievous scenes, Marianne. They are victims of the war. This good woman, you see, has been wounded, and mademoiselle here has become separated from her parents, has passed the night alone in a cow shed in the very track of the enemy.”

“Mon Dieu!” cried Marianne, hurrying down the steps. “Certainly, monsieur, they shall of the best. I, myself, will see that they are cared for. Enter, madame. Enter, mademoiselle. I am honored.”

They passed into the house, where Marianne bustled about in great excitement and presently a plentiful meal was set before them to which Mons. Carriere left them while he went forth upon his errand of inquiry. It was not long before Paulette and Marianne were chattering together like old friends, their conversation interspersed with many pious ejaculations, and on Marianne’s part with many expressions of astonishment. Soon tiring of their talk Lucie stole out into the garden, finding it upon closer investigation very like, yet unlike, her own. There was no stone bench. There was no cherry tree overhanging the wall over which she might see Annette’s face appear. She wondered what Annette was doing. This recalled Pom Pom, whose achievements had been made the subject of some of Paulette’s recital. She wondered where he was. In the excitement of her parting from Victor, and in reaching this haven of rest, she had not thought of much except the possibility of soon seeing her grandfather, forgetting for the moment all about the little dog. The last she had seen of him he was at the station at Victor’s heels.

Starting up from her seat in alarm she was about to reënter the house when she heard at the gate a little whining sound, then a quick sharp bark. “Pom Pom,” she called, “is it then you?”

A joyful bark answered. She ran to the gate, admitting the little creature, who jumped upon her in wild delight. “I wonder where you have been,” said Lucie, gathering him up in her arms. Pom Pom tried to explain in dog language, but Lucie did not understand that he was trying to tell her of his adventures, and that he had followed for some distance a rapidly moving something which was bearing away his beloved master, that finding he could not overtake this galloping monster he had returned to the station, nosed about till he caught the right scent and so had traced his second best beloved to this present spot.

“I suppose you are hungry,” remarked Lucie.

Pom Pom quite understood this and answered accordingly. His answer brought Marianne to the door. “Is it this so wonderful dog you have there?” she asked. “He shall have food of the best. If he prefers, mademoiselle, he shall have it there in the garden. I will bring it to him.”

She went off, soon returning with a dish of meaty scraps and a pan of milk upon which Pom Pom set to work without delay, finishing up by licking both pan and dish. Then he lay down contentedly at Lucie’s feet.

She had settled herself comfortably in a high-backed rustic chair which stood invitingly in the shade. It was a delightful resting place. The flitting of birds, the hum of bees, the odor of flowers, gave her a homelike feeling. She was very tired, she realized, for she had endured a rough journey, and her sleep of the night before had been none too sweet. It was a kind Providence which had led her into such a spot as this, yet, she reflected, it was all of Victor’s doing. Grandfather, where was he? When would she hear from her parents? What of Annette? These and other wandering questions passed through her mind, becoming more and more vague till finally both little dog and little girl were sound asleep.

CHAPTER VII
A STRANGE GARRET

THE shadows had grown very long and the sunset light in the western sky had faded to a twilight hue when Lucie was suddenly awakened by a sharp bark from Pom Pom. She sat up expecting to see a more familiar face than that of Mons. Carriere who bent over her. Pom Pom, as protector, was protesting against the too near approach of any one save a member of the family. As soon as Lucie came to a realizing sense of where she was, she sprang up asking eagerly: “My grandfather? Have you found him?”

“Alas, no, my child,” was the disappointing reply. “It seems that he has not reached this town as yet.”

“But what—where is he then?”

Mons. Carriere hesitated. “That one cannot tell at once. In these times a thousand things might happen. He may have been turned aside on account of danger from the guns. He may have taken another road, a longer, though perhaps better. It will do no harm to wait a little. Give him time. You are more than welcome to remain as my guest. Content yourself, my child. If, after a reasonable time, he does not come, then we will see what next.”

“But monsieur—” Lucie began to protest.

“La la, there is nothing to say, not a word. Let us go in and see what that Marianne has for us.”

There was indeed nothing to do but to accept the hospitality so readily offered, so Lucie went in, but though her host did his best to make her feel at ease and to declare himself fortunate in having the opportunity of entertaining a guest at table, Lucie felt too troubled to enjoy her meal very much, though she realized that Fate had been kinder to her than to most refugees. She made an effort to appear cheerful, but her wistful smile went to Mons. Carriere’s heart, and made him even more fatherly in his manner toward her.

He left her to Paulette when the meal was over, and then these two conferred together.

“I am troubled, so troubled, Paulette,” said Lucie. “I am most unfortunate. My father wounded, my mother lost, my grandfather who knows where?”

“Take heart, my child, it is not so bad as it appears,” Paulette made the effort to console her. “It is much better than yesterday when your only shelter was a cow shed and you were entirely alone. Your father lives, we are assured, and since he has recovered thus far we may believe that he has turned the corner. Your mother is with him, no doubt, and as for your grandfather, there is no need to worry about him, for he is with friends who will look after him. One must do what one can in these times, and I have my belief that we shall find him in Paris waiting for us.”

“Then do we go on at once?”

“Not at once. In another day, I think. We must give them another day. This is a good place. One finds it peaceful, restful. This Marianne so friendly, monsieur so kind. Yes, it is not showing appreciation to hurry away without reason. Another day, chèrie. We will take a good night’s rest and let the morrow take care of itself.”

“Do you think grandfather will be here then?”

“It may be. If not we shall meet him in Paris. We have had that message of his. It is enough.” And with this Lucie was obliged to be satisfied.

It had been an eventful day, but its excitements appeared to Lucie no greater than those to which she looked forward in that great city of Paris, which place she half feared, then longed to see. Was it there that their home was to be henceforth, and what would it be like? She could not form any picture of it in her mind, but wherever it might be it was there that she would next see her parents. She fell asleep wondering how soon they would all be united, and slept soundly, the “so intelligent dog” curled up at her feet.

She awoke bright and early the next morning, at first imagining herself back in her own room, though she soon perceived the difference and sat up, the better to observe what she had failed to take in the night before. It was a clean, orderly little room adorned with such things as appeal to a young man’s taste, and she concluded that one of those three sons must have occupied it before he went soldiering.

“At least it is not a cow shed,” she remarked to Pom Pom, “although for my part I do not care for those funny things upon the wall.” She was attracted by a pair of foils and fencing gloves at which she looked curiously, then gave her attention to other manly adornments of the room. These, however, did not keep her attention very long, for she remembered the eventful journey which was probably before her, and soon made ready to go downstairs to glean such news as might have been gathered during the night. She found Paulette still in the rôle of heroine recounting her adventures to a group of Marianne’s friends. She stopped short at sight of Lucie and the little company of gossips dispersed so that Lucie was left alone with Paulette, whom she began to consider rather a person of importance who might very well direct their future plans.

“What news? What news?” she asked. “Has anything been heard of my grandfather?”

“Nothing,” replied Paulette, “and no news is good news. As for other things they say the Germans are still advancing and that the people are flocking from the villages by thousands. Those that do not flee must remain to be under German rule. We are lucky, we, to have come when we did.”

“What would have happened if we had stayed?”

“If we were not killed by the bombardment, we would have been caught like rats in a trap.”

“Would they have killed us?” asked Lucie in horror.

“One cannot say, but for my part I should not like the idea of being forced to obey a boche.”

“But do you think, could it be that mother and grandfather have been caught that way?”

“Pst!” Paulette made a scornful snap of her fingers. “Dispose of that notion. We shall hear quite otherwise. We shall know the truth about them before long. In Paris everything is known. They say that one cannot wink without the thing being known by the police.”

“What do we do first when we get to Paris?” Lucie inquired, full of curiosity. “Where do we go? Is it to a place we shall live till my parents arrive, and will it be in the heart of the city or in the suburbs? Shall we have a garden, do you think?”

“La la,” cried Paulette, “what questions! How is one to tell till we get there?”

“Shall we have plenty of money? Are we going to be very poor? Have you enough in case grandfather is delayed in coming?”

“Such questions!” cried Paulette again. “We shall not at once starve, though what is in the future who can say? The business is a thing of the past; it is no more, and one must exercise economy of course, but we shall see what we shall see. Rest tranquil for the present, my pigeon; to-day we shall dine.” And no more could Lucie learn.

Though anxiously looked for, no news of Mons. Du Bois came that day. Acting on the advice of Mons. Carriere, Lucie wrote to her grandfather in the care of Jacques Moulin, and then Paulette determined that they must set out the next morning, although Mons. Carriere protested, and begged that they would remain where they were till something definite had been learned about Mons. Du Bois. But Paulette, with the obstinacy of her class, insisted that there was but one thing to be done, and that was to carry out Mons. Du Bois’s orders. He had said that if they missed him, failed to meet him in this town, they were to go on to Paris and communicate with him there, so to Paris they must go and that was the end of it.

Their good host did all that he could to smooth the way for them. He directed them to a small and inexpensive hotel, urged them to let him know how they fared and if in any difficulty to notify him, so they set out quite cheerfully and hopefully.

The journey occupied more time than they supposed it would, for the distance was not great and in ordinary times would have taken but a few hours, but now there were frequent stops, cautious and slow advances, but at last Paris was reached and they stood on the platform of the Gare du Nord, Paulette still holding fast to her green umbrella and Pom Pom capering about in delight at being released from confinement. They drove to the quiet little hotel which Mons. Carriere had recommended, and here began Lucie’s life in Paris, whether to be of long or short period who could tell?

It was rather disappointing to Lucie from the outset. The small hotel seemed a stuffy, shabby place after the daintiness and freshness of her own home. Paulette was overcome with fear at the traffic in the streets and dared not venture out, nor would she for a moment allow Lucie to go.

“You? Alone? A young maid in the streets of Paris? Ciel!” she exclaimed. “It would be as a lamb among wolves. No, no, my child, it is not to be thought of.”

“But, Paulette,” protested the girl, “it is so stupid here. I thought Paris would be very gay, and here in this dark little street where one can see so little it is anything but gay, and I do not like it.”

“One cannot look for gayety in war time,” returned Paulette grimly, “and what one wants is not what one may look to receive.”

This Spartan-like response was very discouraging, and leaving Paulette to arrange and rearrange the various baskets and bundles, Lucie went to the window to gaze out into the street. A dismal rain was now falling, and such little light as might be was intercepted by the tall buildings opposite. It was not a very pleasing outlook and there was nothing going on in the street itself that particularly invited attention, yet Lucie, in order to pass away the time, sat for a long time with elbows on the window sill, looking out.

She was aroused by a sudden remark of Paulette’s. “One cannot afford this very long,” she said. “Unless we hear from your grandfather by to-morrow morning we must seek this Mons. Moulin.”

Lucie turned away from the window and seated herself upon a worn and faded armchair. “But, Paulette, you tell me you are so afraid in the streets, and how could we ever find the way, in the rain too?”

“Are there not telephones?” returned Paulette.

Sitting on the topmost step, her head buried in her arm, sobbing her heart out.

“To be sure. We might have thought of that at once, and so relieved our minds. Will you go down with me and see about it now, Paulette? We know the address so it should not be difficult to find it in the book. Shall we go?”

“The sooner the better,” responded Paulette. So down they went to the telephone below. Paulette grudgingly produced the necessary coin to pay for the call, and after some delay they managed to get hold of the operator, but after what seemed an unconscionable time they were informed that no response came to the call.

“It is probably a place of business and too late to find the proprietor,” suggested the old man in charge of the office. “To-morrow, mademoiselle, in the morning, no doubt you will find him without difficulty.”

But in the morning they met with no greater success. “No answer,” reported the operator.

“What can it mean?” Lucie turned in bewilderment to the old man.

“Probably this person has moved away.”

“Then what shall we do?”

“One would best go to the place and find out. There are neighbors, no doubt, who can tell where the person has gone.”

“We shall have to go. There is nothing left to do,” said Lucie, turning to Paulette. “Is it far, monsieur?” she asked. She showed the old man the slip of paper on which she had written the address.

He read it and shrugged his shoulders. “Far enough.”

“But one can walk?” put in Paulette.

“Perhaps, if one knows the way; otherwise one must ride. A cab is not so easy to procure these days; an omnibus, perhaps. It will be much cheaper.”

“The cab, no. I will not go to the expense,” declared Paulette firmly. “As to the omnibus—well, that too is a venture. How does one tell when to get out? It is all very bewildering, this.” Always a resourceful person, she now looked more worried than Lucie had ever seen her.

“Perhaps we could find some one to go with us,” the happy thought came to Lucie.

“That is well thought of,” said the man, who was a good sort and really quite concerned. “At another time I could accompany you myself, but in these days—” He shook his head. “I am here to look after the business of my son who has gone to the war, I who thought myself retired and comfortable for the rest of my days. But what will you? I cannot let the business go to the dogs. It is bad enough as it is, yet one must hold on to it. I will think what can be done. My grandson might go; he is at school, but when he returns we shall see.”

This relieved the situation in most directions, though Paulette had many misgivings about trusting herself to the guardianship of so young a lad as the little André was, and went forth in fear and trembling. Lucie, on the contrary, was delighted at being able to see something of the city. The rain had ceased, though it was still cloudy. André chattered away, pointed out landmarks, answered questions glibly, and was altogether a very satisfactory companion. Lucie thought Paulette stalked along with the air of being ready to challenge any one who looked her way, and though she bore herself stoically when they came to the crowded crossings, Lucie could see that she was in an agony of fear and dread.

At last they reached the street and number which should be that of Jacques Moulin’s establishment. It was closed, doors locked, windows barred. A notice read: “Fermez; le propriétaire est sous les drapeaux.”

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Paulette, “but this is a thing terrible.”

Lucie was not so easily daunted. “We will inquire next door,” she said, and forthwith proceeded to investigate.

An elderly man answered her questions. “Jacques Moulin?” Yes, to be sure. He had gone, departed to the war. The business had been suspended until after the war; who knew how long that might be? Had one Antoine Du Bois been here recently inquiring for this same Moulin? The man considered. He shook his head. No, there had been no one of that name, of that he was positive.

Entirely at a loss what to do next, the little party turned away after having secured the address of the firm with which Jacques Moulin had consolidated. Paulette scarcely spoke on the way back; she was too deeply occupied with puzzling out plans for the future. Lucie, too, though she kept one ear open for André’s chatter, was disturbed in her mind.

“What are we to do, Paulette? What are we to do?” she asked once they were back in their rooms.

Paulette dived down into the depths of a pocket under her petticoats and drew forth a queer little pouch the contents of which she shook out into her lap, many sous, some franc pieces, a few five franc coins, one paper note. She counted it all over laboriously. “This will serve for a time,” she said at last, “and then the deluge. At once we must find cheap lodgings, and then I shall look for employment; it should not be difficult to find this when so many men have gone. I shall succeed. Oh yes, I shall succeed.”

Lucie sat mute and distressed while Paulette made her calculations. “But, Paulette,” she broke out finally, “is it necessary to do this? My grandfather surely will appear very soon, and then there is my father’s pay. When he knows our needs, of course he will see to it that we have money.”

Paulette looked at her pityingly. “Pauvre petite, one may not look at things through such rose-colored glasses. It might happen that the affair would run smoothly, but how do we know that your father is yet well enough to attend to such matters? This in the first place, and in the second it might delay his recovery if he were given cause to worry. Again, affairs of government are not arranged in a moment. Papers must be prepared, sent to this one, that, and who knows how many months may pass before all is arranged? Meanwhile are we to sit and suck our paws like bears?”

“You know a great deal, don’t you, Paulette?” said Lucie much impressed.

“I have ears. I know what I hear,” returned Paulette. “Moreover,” she went on, “who am I that I should not work? I have always worked, even as a little child. I should be lost, desolated, without work. Am I to sit up like a lady and fold my hands at my time of life? No, no, the sooner I get to work the better.”

“But I cannot bear the idea of your working to feed me,” said Lucie.

“And who has a better right? Did I not nurse you, and have I not served your family always, always.”

“Nevertheless,” began Lucie.

“La la, if it comes to that,” interrupted Paulette, “when I am too old to work we can settle the score. That is finished. Now something else. We telephone to these people whose address you have just learned. We learn what we learn. Then at once we look for other lodgings. When we leave here we leave the new address with the old one so that any may know where to find us. That is all.” She carefully replaced the money, securely tied up the little bag and put it back in her deep pocket, then rose to carry out the plans she had made.

At the end of twenty-four hours Paulette had accomplished what she set out to do, and Lucie found herself high up in an attic room, in an old part of the city. “It is not magnificent but it will serve,” was Paulette’s comment as they took possession. Lucie made no answer. It seemed a mean and poor habitation to her. Its one redeeming feature was a window which overlooked what had been an old convent garden, and gave opportunity for the sun to find its way into the room, and for the girl to see a bit of sky above the housetops. She foresaw that this would be her favorite spot, and that a chair by the window would save her from a feeling of utter desolation. “All the same I shall never cease to feel like a cat in a strange garret,” she said to herself, as she turned away from the window to help Paulette stow away their very modest belongings.

CHAPTER VIII
A BIT OF SKY

PROBABLY no quarter of the city could have suited Lucie and Paulette better than the one to which good fortune guided them. Paulette, while always declaring that she hated Paris and that she counted the days till she could again return to her own home, nevertheless soon became accustomed to the neighborhood and hobnobbed with dames of her own degree, becoming as canny a femme de ménage as any, doing her marketing with an eye to the main chance and learning where one could best shop for this or that commodity. With her usual good sense she had looked for work of such kind as she could best do, and was engaged by two families to do a certain amount of work, buy the food and cook the midday meal, this employment occupying only her mornings, so that Lucie would not be left alone the entire day.

Many were the charges given to the little girl when Paulette went off to her work. She was not to leave the room on any pretext. She was not to open to any one. She was not to play with fire.

At this last order Lucie always laughed. “One would think me a baby,” she would declare.

“One cannot be too careful,” was Paulette’s invariable reply. “You are ambitious, and some day you may attempt to cook the meal, and then what?”

In her secret heart Lucie did cherish such an ambition in order that she might surprise Paulette by having the meal ready upon the good woman’s return, so she never had a response ready.

“I will tell that Mathilde, below there, to let no one up,” said Paulette as usual, one morning as she went out.

“But supposing it should be grandfather or one of my parents,” returned Lucie.

“That is another thing. Mathilde would understand, yet I do not expect she will have so good news to tell me when I return, for it is ill news we are having now. This morning I hear that the town where that excellent Mons. Carriere lives has fallen into the hands of the Germans.”

“Oh!” Lucie was startled. “What do you suppose will happen to him?”

“Who knows? With the Boches nearing Paris it is as much as one can do to keep faith and hope alive.”

“Oh, Paulette, will they really get here, do you think?”

“They have moved the government to Bordeaux.”

“How fearful! But the people will not let them in, will they?”

Paulette compressed her lips to a hard line. “Not till they have killed every poilu on the way. Do not distress yourself, my little one. They are not here yet. It is merely as a precaution that the government removes itself. Now I go. Do not leave the place nor let any one in the door.” And picking up her baskets she went out.

Lucie often went with Paulette to the little market and was never at a loss for entertainment there, whether it was listening to the arguments carried on between seller and buyer, in watching the people or in giving an ear to the gossip of Paulette and some other peasant-born woman. Pom Pom always went along, too, and generally managed to pick up some bit of meat, a luxury to him as well as to most. On the way home there was always a halt at a church in whose solemn and silent interior prayers were offered up for those about whom all were anxious.

The little dog was great company for Lucie, and since there was no Mousse to claim Paulette’s attention, she too bestowed her favor upon Pom Pom. Probably he enjoyed, as much as the other two, the almost daily visit to the park near by when both Lucie and Paulette would take their knitting and sit under the trees with numbers of others all knitting, knitting for the soldiers. The streets were very quiet these days. One saw few young men unless it be a wounded man in uniform, perhaps minus a leg or arm, or maybe blinded and guided by some other. At night it was very dark, scarce a light to be seen, and it was terrifying when more than once up from the street below would come the shrill alarm of the pompiers: garde à vous, and this meant that one must look out for the Zeppelins. Being at the top of the house there was more danger for Lucie, Paulette and their neighbors on that floor than for those below, and Paulette never failed to rout Lucie out of bed, gather up Pom Pom and flee to the lowest floor where lived Madame Mathilde, who was concierge, if so modest a house can be said to possess a concierge.

It was one day when Paulette had gone off to her work that Lucie was busy with her knitting, looking off between whiles at the bright clouds floating over the tops of buildings and lending a radiance to a spire here, a window there, when somehow the whole view made her think of an evening with her mother just before the sad breaking up came. “Always look up, dear daughter, and find a bit of sky,” her mother had said. “One’s soul is seldom absolutely shut in. Between branches and roofs one can generally find a shining piece of sky.” It all came back to the girl now, those happy home days, those quiet talks in the garden. She was very lonely, and liked the big city no better than Paulette did, who was always declaring that the only thing which kept her from returning, Germans or no Germans, was the fact that Mons. Du Bois might appear at any moment and be distressed at not finding his granddaughter.

Lucie came to the toe of the stocking upon which she was at work. This was the difficult place over which Paulette always helped her, so she laid it aside till Paulette should return. This was the signal for Pom Pom to arouse from his nap and to beg for a frolic. He jumped upon Lucie, wagging his tail, and giving little sharp barks.

“Not so much noise, Pom,” chided Lucie. “Did you hear the pompier last night? I know you did for you trembled and whined your fear. Well, Paulette declares we would be safer in our old home, so we may take to the road again. Come, you must have your soldier clothes, for you may have to fight for us.”

Pom Pom backed away, for this was a game that he did not care for, but seeing that there was no help for it he meekly submitted to being dressed up in the funny little coat and cap which Annette and Lucie had made for him.

“Now come show yourself to the people,” said Lucie after he was attired. “You must let them see that there is a poilu here to help in the defense of the city.”

She carried him over to the open window and held him so he stood upright upon his hind legs, though he did not like this one little bit, and began to whine his protests. Lucie expostulated with him. “I am surprised at you, Pom Pom; a soldier of France, a poilu, to act as if he were afraid. That is no way to behave. You were brave enough when we were on the road. Here, here, show how you can sing the Marseillaise: ‘Aux armes, citoyens.’”

A very shrill, high-pitched whine was Pom Pom’s accompaniment to Lucie’s song, the whine increasing in shrillness as the song proceeded.

Presently Lucie was aware of an audience, for she heard a mirthful laugh, and looking across to the next window she saw the head of a bright-eyed little girl.

“How he is amusing, this dog,” said the child. “Is he yours, and what is his name?”

“Yes, he is mine and he is called Pom Pom,” Lucie replied.

“He must be much company for you.”

“Certainly I should be very lonely without him. I do not know in fact what would become of me without him when I am here so long alone.”

“Why are you alone?”

“Because I have no brothers or sisters. I know no one here in Paris. My father has gone to the war. My mother has gone to the hospital where he lies wounded. My grandfather has lost himself on the road to this city, and I have arrived here with only our old servant, Paulette. We were obliged to leave our home, you see, when the Germans came.”

“Ah, but you are better off than I am, for your parents are still living. My dear papa was killed in the war, and my mamma died, the little baby too; it was such a little baby, and she was too ill to make such a long journey on foot. I am here with the old aunt of my father, and we lodge with a friend of hers. They must both go to work every day, so I am also alone. It is very triste, this place, is it not? One misses so many things, particularly the animals and the garden.”

“You mean this Paris? You do not belong here then?”

“No, I come from Picardy.”

“Then we are comrades,” cried Lucie, “for I come from the Aisne district, and like you I have left my home to come to this place of refuge. What is your name?”

“I am called Odette, Odette Moreau.”

“And I am Lucie Du Bois.”

“I wish I could come to see you and your dog,” said Odette.

Lucie hesitated a moment, remembering Paulette’s charges, but she managed to get around the subject by saying: “Why can’t you? When Paulette comes back she will permit me to open the door, though while she is out I may not.”

Odette laughed. “My case is even worse, for I am locked in.”

“Then when those old ones return we can visit, I hope.”

“I shall like that. Do you not think you’d better take in your dog? The police do not allow us to place anything on the window sill, you know.”

“But Pom Pom is not a thing,” returned Lucie laughing; “I consider him a person.”

Odette laughed in response but drew in her head and Lucie did the same. Paulette would not return for another hour, during which time would hang heavy on her hands. She wished that Paulette were not so particular, and that Odette’s guardians were not such exacting ones. “There could not be the slightest objection to my opening the door to Odette, that I know,” she said to Pom Pom. “If only she could get out I certainly would do it. Hark! What is that?”

Pom Pom pricked up his ears and growled at a sharp noise which seemed to come from the next room.

“Hush, Pom Pom; it is not possible to find out what that is when you make such a fuss,” said Lucie. “It cannot be a bird, yet what else? Certainly that is something tapping on the window. I will go and peep. Softly now, softly.”

She tiptoed to the next room, and saw pressed against the window pane the merry face of Odette. In another moment the window was opened and in slipped the little neighbor.

Lucie looked at her in amazement. “How in the world did you get here?” she asked.

Odette laughed. “It was not so difficult. I could not open my door and you were not permitted to open yours, so I told myself that one must contrive another way. There was nothing said about windows, you perceive, therefore I come by way of windows.”

“But how?” repeated Lucie.

“Where there are trap doors, roofs, and gutters it is easy to one who is used to climbing,” returned Odette with a little shrug of the shoulders and a nonchalant air.

“So then you climbed through a trap door, down the roof, made your way across a gutter and dropped down on the balcony outside there. I don’t see how you had the courage. I can climb trees but when it comes to a thing like this—” Lucie shook her head in sheer wonder at the audacity of it.

“I am not one to lose my head,” returned Odette serenely.

“But if you had fallen.”

“I should have been killed, instantly. What matter? One must die sooner or later, and at least I have no one to grieve for me. So much the sooner would I meet my father and mother again. Now I shall stay till those old ones return and we shall tell each other of what has been, and what has come to us in these sad days.”

But Lucie’s thoughts were still upon Odette’s daring deed. “Suppose you had been seen from the street; the police would have come dashing in, and then—”

“But I was not upon the window sill,” interrupted Odette laughing. “Moreover, I was not seen, for at this moment every one eats and there were few to look up, for those who were not indoors eating were thinking of what they should eat, and one does not look for food in the skies or on roofs. No, I assure you, I was quite safe.”

So the subject was dismissed and Lucie led the way into her little room, saying, “It is more pleasant here by my window. We will sit here and tell of our adventures.”

“And will the little dog sit in my lap? I had a dear dog at home but he is also dead, killed by a bomb, they said. It was strange that I did not weep when I was told, but I think I had no more tears. I shed them all when my mother died.” Into the child’s brown eyes came a haunted look, as if she were seeing things beyond power of words to tell. She was a slightly built, thin little creature, not so tall as Lucie and of darker skin.

The tears came to Lucie’s eyes as she lifted Pom Pom into her visitor’s lap. The dog looked inquiringly at his mistress but seemed to understand that he was to remain, and was very quiet under the caressing touch of Odette’s hand.

“We had a little farm,” Odette went on, “and we were very happy, but I shall never see that home again, for it does not exist. There is nothing there, nothing but deep holes in the ground, no trees, no house, no barn; all is destroyed, the house and barn burned, the trees cut down, the fields plowed up by bullets and bombs. There is nothing to go back to, and no one is there. Oh, I know, for I have heard my aunt tell it over and over again, and when I shut my eyes at night I can imagine it, that horrible place of holes where no one lives. I do not wish to see it, but sometimes I dream of my home, yet when I wake I know it is only a dream, only a dream.” She shook her head mournfully, and the tragic expression in her eyes deepened. In another moment, however, she tossed up her head with a gesture of defiance. “I will not think of it. I will think only of France, and of her soldiers. You have a soldier papa. Tell me of him and of your home.”

“My papa is a captain. He went at once. He was wounded, but at last news he was improving. Paulette managed to find out this, and we are now trying to get word of my mamma, and of my grandfather. We expected to find my grandfather here in Paris, but he has not come and those good ladies at the ouvroir are trying to find out what has become of him. Our home was not a farm but in a small town where my father had a factory as his father had before him. We are afraid all is destroyed, but we do not know. We had a pretty garden and such pleasant neighbors. I hope, oh, I do hope all is not destroyed, and that we can go back. I cannot imagine being happy anywhere else.”

Odette looked at her compassionately. “It seems that you are very young,” she said. “Me, I feel so old. I think I have lived many years in a few weeks, and yet I am only fifteen.”

“And I only a year younger,” Lucie said. “Why do I seem so young to you, Odette?”

“Because you still have things to expect, to hope for. I have nothing, because all has been taken.”

“Oh, but Odette!”

“La, la, let us not speak of it. I shall laugh and be gay, very gay like the soldiers. Is it for the soldiers you are knitting?”

“Yes, but I cannot do the toe of my sock without Paulette. I am very stupid about it.”

“Ah, that is where I can help you, for I have been knitting socks for so long a time I cannot remember when I began it. Give me your knitting, I shall like to work upon it.” She took the sock which Lucie handed to her, and at once made the needles fly so fast that Lucie looked on in admiration.

“What a brisk worker,” exclaimed the latter. “You are very clever, Odette.”

“Oh, not at all. I do everything at a gallop; it has always been my way. Where is it that your father is?”

“Somewhere in the provinces, Paulette said, and he will then be sent to another place where the convalescents are. Paulette is so timid, so afraid in this Paris that she will not venture anywhere that she is not obliged to go, neither will she allow me to go. I think there may be places where one could find out things, but we are ignorant of them, and can only do so much.”

Odette nodded understandingly. “We of the country are afraid in this city so large. Me, when the time comes I shall go back to the country, somewhere in the country. I know not where; so says my aunt and so say I.”

“Hark,” said Lucie, jumping up, “there comes Paulette. She may seem severe, but she is kind, oh, so kind, and you will not mind when she looks at you sharply; it is her way, that is all.”

“One knows the way of these old ones,” returned Odette imperturbably, going on with her knitting.

Paulette came to the door, and, as Lucie had warned, looked sharply at the little visitor. “And pray who is this?” she asked.

“It is our next door neighbor, Odette Moreau.”

“Then you have opened the door to her,” Paulette said this disapprovingly.

Odette looked up with a mischievous smile.

“That she did not, Madame,” she said.

“One cannot open it without a key,” said Paulette, shaking her head, “and there is no other way of entering.”

“Ah, but there is, Madame, and I took that way.” There was such a roguish look in Odette’s eyes that Lucie laughed.

“You are mocking me, and trying to deceive me, but me, I am not one to be deceived even in this so great city,” declared Paulette.

“But I am not deceiving you,” protested Odette, “and if you wish to know how I entered I will tell you that it was by the window.”

“The window!” Paulette gazed at the window of the little room as if she expected to see at least a ladder there.

“Not this one, but that in the other room,” Odette went on. “There is a small balcony there if you remember.”

“But one cannot reach it except from the room. That is a poor method, mademoiselle, of getting out of a bad situation.”

“There are airplanes and balloons.” Odette placidly kept on with the knitting while Paulette’s sharp eyes noted the rapidity with which she made the needles fly.

“But that is absurd,” said the good woman.

“This is but a ruse,” She turned to Lucie. “I desire to know how this young person came to find her way in here.”

“It is as she said; she came by the window,” Lucie told her with a smile.

“But this is too ridiculous,” declared Paulette, walking off with a troubled look.

“Come back! Come back, and we will tell you all about it.” Lucie ran after her. “She was lonely, this poor little Odette, shut up, locked in indeed. We saw each other from the window, and when we learned that we were both refugees and both from Picardy, figure to yourself how easy it was to become acquainted. I might not open my door; she could not unlock hers, for her aunt has taken the key. Oh, she is clever and very brave, this Odette. What do you think she did? She climbed through a trap door upon the roof, and dropped as easily as a bird upon the balcony. She tapped upon the window; I heard her and let her in.” Then before Paulette could censure, Lucie hastened to continue her story. “And, Paulette, it is so sad; there is her father dead upon the battlefield, her home burned to the ground. Her poor mother with her little baby died on the way when they were escaping from the Germans. Think of being shut up alone with such memories. Do you wonder that she longed for some one to speak to?”

Paulette sighed. “It was a great risk and altogether wrong,” she said, “but I do not wonder, and since she is here she must stay till she can get back.” In her secret heart she admired the reckless deed quite as much as she did the expert way in which Odette handled the knitting needles. Therefore back she went to speak more graciously to the little neighbor, and to bid her welcome.

This was the beginning of an acquaintance, the result of which none of them foresaw, nor did they dream of the part little Odette should have in their lives.

CHAPTER IX
SHOES

AFTER this there was not a day passed that Lucie and Odette were not together, for while Odette belonged to the peasant class and Lucie to the bourgeois, this was no time for distinctions, and Paulette countenanced the acquaintance not only because Odette was a well-behaved young person, but because the two little girls were lonely and were companions in misery. Besides all this Odette was so alert and capable, knew so much of domestic affairs, that Paulette was convinced in time that she could trust the two girls to cook a meal, and to do many of the things which heretofore she had never admitted could be done by any one but herself. Like most in her walk of life, Paulette was suspicious, and must satisfy herself as to the character of those neighbors with whom Odette lived.

“They are old, those two next door,” she reported to Lucie the day after Odette’s first visit.

“As old as you, Paulette?” asked Lucie innocently.

“As old as I? Ma foi, one would suppose me an ancient, I who have a young son no older than eighteen. Those two could be my mother.”

“Both of them? It would be funny to have two mothers,” replied Lucie mischievously.

“Zut!” exclaimed Paulette contemptuously. “It is this city, no doubt, which teaches you to be so witty. I repeat they are of an age when I might be a daughter to either one. They are given work at the ouvroir of les Dames Americaine, but very little pay; three francs a day the two of them receive, but they maintain that it suffices. For me I make more, yet it is well to remember this ouvroir. One never knows what may happen. They have no allotment to depend upon, those two poor old bodies, for they have not a son in the army, as I have.”

“I have a father, should not I have an allotment?” asked Lucie.

“It goes to your mother, of course,” returned Paulette. “Do not worry over that; you are too young. We have enough, perhaps we do not feast, but at least we do not starve.” She paused to give herself up to meditating upon what Lucie had suggested, then she broke out with: “And even supposing there were an allotment for you, it would be small enough, and how would one go about getting it for you? It is not for me to say, and we had better think no more about it.”

“I like that Odette,” remarked Lucie, “and I am very glad she is so near that I can see her every day. Did you ask her aunt if she would let her come?”

“I asked, yes, for they seem respectable, though they were horrified to discover what the child had done, and no wonder. She has always been very venturesome, said the aunt. ‘I call it more than venturesome; I call it foolhardy,’ said the other.”

“And what do you call it?” asked Lucie.

Paulette shrugged her shoulders. “It is as one looks at those things. For you I should call it imbecile, for this other who is as thin and lithe as a monkey it is another thing, I would not have her do it again, but for this once it shows what she is made of. She would not hesitate, that one. If she saw a thing must be done, she would do it without delay.”

“I like that,” returned Lucie. “It is as our soldiers do.”

“And as the wives of soldiers must do,” which remark showed Lucie that Odette was approved.

It was the very next day that Paulette came home with a long face. She put down her basket with a heavy sigh, and paid no attention to Pom Pom’s joyous greetings.

“What is it, Paulette?” asked Lucie anxiously. “Are you ill?”

“In mind; not body.”

“But why? What has happened? Don’t tell me, Paulette, that there is some new misfortune.”

“It is a misfortune that I am deprived of the means of earning a fair living. Madame Lemercier is leaving the city to-day and Madame Gouraud goes next week. They fear to remain, and are going to the south where they have friends.”

“Oh, Paulette, what are we to do? I did not expect that I should be hearing such news as this.”

“Nor did I expect, when I spoke of those old ones and the ouvroir which is helping them, that Paulette Ribot might have to accept charity from the hands of strangers. But she will not, no, she will not, if there is work for her in this city. To-morrow begins the search for it.”

“Those two for whom you have been working, Madame Lemercier and Madame Gouraud, did they know of no one who would like a femme de ménage?”

“Hélas! they did not. I asked, of course, but what would you when they were all absorbed in their preparations for leaving? No, what comes to one must be first sought for.”

Lucie sighed. “I wish there were something I could do, for soon my shoes will be gone, and yours, too, my Paulette; then we shall want warm things for the winter.”

“It will not be difficult if one can get work, for I still have a little hoard and there is Jean’s allotment when it comes. Do not be uneasy, my child. I begin to-morrow to hunt the city over for employment.”

“But, Paulette, you do not know the city, and you are afraid to go anywhere except in those streets with which you are acquainted.”

Paulette puffed out her cheeks and threw back her head. “Zut!” she exclaimed. “Have I then less courage than that little skinny ape of a child next door? Rest tranquil, chérie; I shall arrive.”

There was a great noise of shouting and cheering in the street at that moment. Lucie ran to the window to see. “Come, Paulette,” she cried. “Something is going on. A victory! Yes, it is a victory! Don’t you hear them shouting: ‘Vive la France,’ and ‘Vive Joffre’? Let us go down and see.”

“Bien,” responded Paulette laconically, putting up her knitting.

So, down the gloomy stairway they went to the street, where people were gathered in knots, all talking, exclaiming. “Is it then a victory at last?” inquired Paulette.

“A victory indeed,” the nearest woman told her. “They have driven those Boches across the Marne. We are safe.”

Paulette looked down at Lucie, who was eagerly listening, “If those silly donkeys of women had but waited another day,” she said, “I would still be holding my job.”

“They will come back, perhaps, when they know.”

“Not they. They have hearts of chickens, rabbits, those two.”

Nevertheless the news of the victory of the Marne did encourage the good woman and she started out the next morning declaring that good luck was with them and that she would come back with work to do. It was very late when she did return, weary and with downcast countenance. She shook her head when Lucie asked what success. “They are so many, these refugees,” she said, “and all must be fed, must have employment. In that St. Sulpice it is like a village, and one meets groups of them on the street with a look as of those lost. So many, so many, and we are also refugees. One more day of this and I go to the country. I care not where. I can work in the fields.”

But the next day she came home with better reports. She had found work, but it would keep her all day, and what would Lucie do?

“I shall have Odette and we can manage,” declared Lucie sturdily. “She can teach me how to cook and I can then have the meal ready when you come.”

“Tst! Tst!” cried Paulette. “Two children instead of one to set the house on fire.”

“But Odette, she is very clever, as clever as a woman. I can tell that. I wish you could see what she has been doing to-day. Wait, I will ask her to show you.” She ran off to bring in the little neighbor, who came, work in hand. “Look at this,” cried Lucie, taking it from her.

Paulette received into her hand a white satin shoe. She looked at it contemptuously. “Is mademoiselle then attending a ball?” she asked sarcastically.

Odette handed her the mate to the shoe; this she was covering neatly with black cloth. “I needed shoes,” she said. “There was but this pair at the ouvroir, but Mademoiselle said I could have them. I think she too wondered what I would do with them. I shall wear them and show her. She will be surprised, that young American lady. The cloth I begged from the bag of the old lady who is friend of my aunt.”

“Is she not clever?” said Lucie.

“She will do,” responded Paulette, but after this no more was said of fire due to carelessness on Odette’s part, and the next morning Paulette started forth to work. It was in a laundry and she did not like it, but never a word did she say to Lucie about that.

So the days went by, and Lucie learned a great many things. Odette taught her to make an excellent potage, though more often it was a soupe maigre which they were obliged to have. Paulette took a modest lunch with her, for she did not get back till night, and the two little girls had their meal together. Paulette arranged that they should go to market with Mathilde, under whose instructions Lucie became an expert buyer, and although she was always busy she was the happier for it.

At night the streets were dark; there was no rattle of omnibuses, no shops open, window curtains drawn, even the street cars darkened by blinds. It was not like the Paris of which Lucie had dreamed in those early days.

Out of this darkness one evening came a welcome visitor. It was Pom Pom who first recognized the step on the stair. He sniffed at the crack of the door, then began to whine excitedly, running first to Lucie and then to Paulette, imploring in his language to be let out.

“What in the world is the matter with the little beast?” said Paulette.

“Shall I let him out?”

“No; it is a stray cat which has come in, no doubt. He does not like stray cats; he is clever, however, and recognizes friends. He never disturbs that big cat of Mathilde.”

“He certainly is making a great fuss,” remarked Lucie as Pom Pom became more and more frantic. “Ah, there is a knock at the door; it is a person and not a cat. Shall I go?”

“Not at all. I will go.” Although she was quite ready to scold Lucie, when she thought occasion required, and the two lived as equals, Paulette never forgot the proprieties when necessary. It was her place to go to the door, and she went. For a moment she started at the soldier standing there in his red trousers and blue coat. The light was dim and until he spoke she did not recognize him. “Monsieur Victor!” she then cried.

Then Lucie, who had vainly tried to hold Pom Pom, sprang to her feet, but she could not outdistance the little dog, who seemed to reach his master at one bound.

“I am right, then,” said Victor’s hearty voice. “There would be no mistaking Pom Pom even if I saw no one else. How are you, Paulette? How is Mlle. Lucie? Ciel! but I have had a time finding you!”

“And how did you find us?” asked Lucie, giving him both hands while he kissed her on either cheek.

“Through our good friend, Mons. Carriere. You know the Germans were driven from his village and when we entered I looked him up. He told me that he had directed you to a certain hotel, the name of which I stowed away in my memory. I found it closed, but I learned where I should find the family of the former proprietor; he, poor fellow, has been killed on the front.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Lucie. “The poor old father, and little André, I am so sorry for them.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Victor hastily. “So then I learned your address and came to find you.”

“But have you received none of my letters?” asked Lucie.

“Not one.”

“How unfortunate! Then I suppose one may believe that none of my letters have reached their destinations, those to my father, my mother, Annette. To my dear grandfather I could not write because I do not know where he is. That is the thing I wish first to know, Victor. Have you heard anything of my grandfather? Mons. Carriere might have learned something. Did you ask him?”

“I asked, yes.” Victor cast a hasty glance at Paulette, who answered by lifting her eyebrows and compressing her lips, but she said not a word. “You know that all those towns beyond there were occupied by the Germans, all that country, in fact.”

“Yes, I know that, but it is not so now, and if he had been there he could have left when the Germans retreated.”

“To be sure.” Victor looked down helplessly, picked up Pom Pom, put him down, got up and walked to the window, where he stood without saying anything.

“Well?” said Lucie at last. “Why don’t you go on, Victor?” she added in a panic. “What is it? What have you heard?”

“You know they shelled those towns,” said Victor at last, his back still turned.

“Yes, yes, I know. Poor grandfather, he was hurt! I see. Tell me, tell me. He lies somewhere wounded, suffering.”

Victor turned around, came close and took her two hands in his. “He is not suffering now, little Lucie,” he said gently.

Lucie looked at him wildly for a moment, then she understood. She buried her face in her hands for a moment, then she ran sobbing to Paulette to hide her face on the good woman’s shoulder. “He is dead, grandfather is dead!” she faltered. “Oh, this cruel, cruel war, will it take everything from us?”

“Courage, little one, courage,” whispered Paulette, patting her softly. “He was not young, the dear man. His time had come and the good God took him.”

“Tell me,” said Lucie, turning her streaming eyes upon Victor. “Tell me all.”

“This Gustave Foucher in whose cart your grandfather traveled, turned aside, as you already know, but, poor man, he turned the wrong way, for soon he found himself in the midst of bombardment. He could not go on; he could not go back. The Germans were in possession, shells were bursting, bombs falling. In hurrying to shelter your grandfather was struck by shrapnel. He lived on a few minutes. A quick death and an easy one.”

“And how did you learn this, Mons. Victor?” asked Paulette.

“I inquired in every town through which I passed, and at last I was told by those remaining in the town. They remembered Foucher quite well, and the old man who came with him and who was killed.”

“And Gustave?”

“Was sent into Germany by the Boches.”

Lucie, who had recovered from her first violent fit of crying, said quietly, “I would rather my grandfather should die than be sent into Germany.”

“One is not necessarily ill treated,” said Victor. “He would be made to work, and he would not feast on the fat of the land, to be sure.”

“And I suppose those Boches had the benefit of our basket of food that was in the cart,” said Paulette, turning to Lucie.

Sad as the occasion was, Victor could not withstand smiling, and even into Lucie’s eyes crept a less mournful look. It was so like Paulette to regret the food.

“I suppose you have seen nothing of my Jean,” said Paulette, changing the subject.

Victor shook his head. “Do you hear from him?” he asked.

“Not often. Once or twice. He was safe two weeks ago. He is a good boy, that Jean, and when he gets his permissionaire he will come to see me, though I wish he might find me elsewhere than in Paris.”

“Then you do not like this fine city.”

Paulette flung out her hands contemptuously. “It is a den of confusion, not so bad now, perhaps since there are fewer vehicles, but I do not find myself at home, and I would rather work in the fields than in a vile laundry.”

“Is that what you are doing?” Victor asked in surprise.

“One must do what one can. I do not care to beg nor to live upon charity. It is necessary to have clothing as well as food. This moment that child needs shoes, or will soon.”

“Does your father know of this?” Victor asked Lucie.

“My father? We have not had a word from him. In some way Paulette was able to find out that he had been sent to a convalescent hospital in the south. We hope my mother is with him, but we do not know. There seems no way to find out. We do not know where to inquire about such things.”

“This must be attended to,” exclaimed Victor. “It cannot be allowed to go on. I will see to this myself. If your father by this time has not returned to his duties, at least he is well enough to know what is happening to you.”

“We did not want to worry him while he was so ill,” explained Lucie, “and after that we did not know where to address him.”

“You could have found out.”

“Where?”

Victor shrugged his shoulders in despair. The helplessness of the girl, the ignorance of the peasant woman, who was also proud and suspicious, was really pitiful. Of Lucie’s father he felt sure he could get a report. Of her mother he had grave doubts which he did not mention. “We shall soon get this straightened out,” he said confidently. “It is the first matter I shall attend to. You have not noticed that I have a promotion, Lucie, and I am much aggrieved. Do you not perceive that I am now a corporal?”

“Really? How stupid of me not to notice, but these other things—” she stopped to draw a long sigh. “I congratulate you, Victor. How did you win your stripe?”

“Oh, never mind; it was a little matter not worth the talking about. I only drew attention to it that you might properly respect me. To-morrow being Sunday I thought we might celebrate it by a little dinner. I believe they still dine in Paris. It is fine weather. We will make a holiday and take a walk in the gardens and have a little treat. What do you say, Paulette? You will go?”

Paulette, pleased to be included, smiled a gracious acceptance, at the same time knowing perfectly well that Lucie could not be allowed to go without her, and believing it would be a good thing to divert the child at this particular time.

“And Annette, you hear from Annette? That is another person who does not answer my letters,” said Lucie.

“Ah, yes, Annette, of course. She is safe, out of the danger zone, but not in the place she expected to be, for that ceased to be safe, and with her grandparents she has gone farther off.”

“So, of course that is why I have not heard from her.”

“I will give you her address; that much at least I can do, and I promise I will soon have news of your father.”

“You are very comforting, Victor; you always are, even this time when you bring me such sorrowful tidings, you comfort me, too. It is very hard for us to have no one.”

“There is no use in complaining,” said Paulette stoically. “We have done very well, Mons. Victor. We have not starved and we have kept a roof over our heads, which is more than some can say. I will light you down. One must not illuminate these days.”

“Good night, little Lucie, and keep up your courage,” said Victor. “To-morrow we shall make a holiday, a quiet one, but still a holiday.”

After watching soldier and faithful servant grope their way down one dim flight, by the flickering light of a candle, Lucie returned to her room. At the foot of the stairs Paulette paused. “It is not for the father I fear so much as the mother,” she said. “If she has been sent to Germany, who knows? who knows?”

“That is in my mind, also, Paulette,” said Victor. “We must not let the child know our fears. She is too young to suffer more than she must, and that is enough. It goes to my heart to see her here in Paris when I remember how gay and happy she was in that other place.”

“It is the will of the bon Dieu, and we must be patient. It is wonderful, monsieur, how patient she has been, and how eager she is to help. If you will believe it she can cook a meal as well as any woman. Even I say it, and the potage she can make need not be despised by any one. She has grown in more ways than in inches.”

“I have done that myself, Paulette,” said Victor gravely. “I shall never again be the careless lad I used to be before this war.”

“It will be so with my Jean, I suppose, if so be God spares him,” said Paulette solemnly.

“And if not he will have a glorious record, that which belongs to one who dies for his country,” returned Victor. “You will try to comfort the little one, Paulette. Do not let her grieve too much for the grandfather. I will not say how fine I think you have been in caring for her. It will be a great consolation to her mother when she knows.”

“There is nothing to say, monsieur,” returned Paulette with dignity. “I am doing my duty which is also my pleasure, for I love the child. I have watched her and served her since she came into the world; it would be a fine thing if I deserted her now.”

She opened the door and let him out into the dark and silent street, then slowly climbed the four flights of stairs to the garret room where Lucie sat in the darkness.

CHAPTER X
NENETTE AND RINTINTIN

IT was when they came from church that Lucie and Paulette found Victor waiting for them, “Come, come,” he said, “we must begin our day at once.”

“We shall have to go up to get Pom Pom first,” returned Lucie. “He has been shut up too long a time to please him as it is. It will be a happy time for him, for he has none too much chance for being out-of-doors.”

“He knew me at once and was glad to see me, the little rascal,” said Victor.

“He will always love you best, though I do think he loves me very well,” said Lucie.

“I should have credited him with better sense,” responded Victor.

“Because of his loving me very well?” asked Lucie mischievously.

“Not at all, but because you think he loves me more. However, I do not admit that.”

Lucie laughed teasingly. She had lain awake a long time the night before, full of trouble and forebodings. She mourned her grandfather sincerely, but she was very young; she had become accustomed to thinking of him as apart from her daily life, therefore she did not miss him as she once would have done. Moreover, the promise of a day of pleasure could but cheer her up, as Victor intended it should do.

She ran upstairs, and presently Pom Pom came dashing down in a perfect turmoil of excitement, the more violent when he beheld Victor. “If I were something smaller he would eat me up,” declared Victor, trying to evade Pom Pom’s lavish bestowal of kisses. “Do you then take me for a lump of meat, Pom Pom?”

At last the dog’s ecstasies were diminished and Victor gave himself up to planning for the day’s outing. “What do you say to a little trip on the river? We may not find it possible to go very far, but a little way is not out of the question. I have a comrade who lives at Auteuil. I have promised to take word of him to his people. Would this plan be agreeable to you, Lucie, and you, Paulette?”

“I should adore it,” declared Lucie. “Isn’t it a delightful idea, Paulette?”

In her heart of hearts Paulette was not so sure. She had never in all her life had the experience of a trip on the water, but if Lucie wanted it, be it far from her to object, so she said in the most indifferent way: “It is all one to me. Suit yourselves and I shall be suited.”

Down to the river they went to board one of the small steamers plying none too frequently between Charenton and Auteuil. On the way Victor stopped to buy a newspaper and some sweet chocolate, which latter he might not have been able to get but for the fact that he was a poilu to whom nothing was to be denied. He handed it to Lucie, who accepted as gratefully as any girl would who had not tasted chocolate in any form for months. Paulette seated herself gingerly. She was armed with the green umbrella, explaining that no one knew when it might rain. She balanced herself on the seat as if momentarily one might expect to be tipped over in one direction or the other, but she soon became accustomed to the easy motion of the steamboat and entertained herself by looking at the other passengers. There was quite a number of soldiers with their sweethearts, a few country people, a couple of nuns, a priest or two.

“At Auteuil we shall take our first meal,” announced Victor.

“I suppose you know where to go,” returned Paulette.

“Oh, yes,” he answered serenely. “I know; it is one reason why we go. These parents of my comrade, it is they who keep a small inn. I tell myself that it is a good policy to go there for we shall be well treated without doubt.”

“Ah-h,” breathed Paulette with satisfaction. “That was a clever idea, monsieur.”

“So I told myself. I said I will go there first because Honoré wishes me to; second, because we shall probably fare better there than anywhere else.”

“Ah-h,” breathed Paulette again. “It is well that those two reasons fitted so conveniently, monsieur.”

Victor laughed, opened his newspaper and began reading bits of news to Lucie. Pom Pom lay on the seat between them, gazing with fascinated eyes at these new scenes through which he was passing.

At last came their landing place, and they went ashore. Victor led the way through this and that street till they stopped before a small inn set in a garden. It bore a sign which set forth the fact that this was the restaurant Honoré, kept by one Pierre Blondot. Victor went in, the others following. A gray-haired man came forward. “Do I address the father of my comrade Honoré Blondot?” said Victor in his best manner.

“Mon Dieu!” cried the man, “you are the friend of our boy? He is well? You bear no bad news?”

“He is very well, and I promised to come and tell you this with my own lips. In passing I will say also that I have brought these ladies to have breakfast in your so charming establishment, of whose merits I have heard many times from my friend Honoré.”

“Bien, bien! That is very well, as it should be. I welcome you and your friends. Marie, Marie, come at once. Here is a pleasant surprise for us. It is my wife that I call, my friends. It is the mother of Honoré who is coming.”

A stout, trim, little dumpling of a woman came bustling forward. “What is this? What is this, Pierre?”

Swelling with importance the good host with a wave of the hands included the guests. “This monsieur, Marie, what think you? he arrives on his permissionaire, is it not so, monsieur? He comes direct to us with a message from our son, his comrade. Is this not a fine thing, that he comes to us?”

“Oh, monsieur, you have seen him, you know him? The little one, he remembered to send us a message. He is well? He is not unhappy?”

“He is very well, madame, and he is quite content. We are all content after the victory. Paris is saved.”

“I will so embrace you, monsieur, for it is you with the others who have done this great thing,” said mine host tearfully, as he laid his big hands on Victor’s shoulders and kissed him on each cheek. “I give you my thanks, my child.”

“Ah, but monsieur, madame, I have done nothing. I am but a very small atom,” protested Victor.

“Without the atoms there could not be a thing entire,” said their host. “But, Marie, we are forgetting the ladies. A thousand pardons, mademoiselle, madame. I beg you will come in and be seated. Breakfast, Marie, and the best, the best.”

At these words Victor turned to give Paulette a sly wink, while she, quite embarrassed at being one of the party at table, and wondering if she would be spared committing a lapse in table manners, seated herself in the place indicated by Pierre.

There were no other guests and the whole establishment seemed to be run by the goodman and his wife, a fact which Lucie noted and whispered to Paulette.

“So much the better,” she returned; “the meal will probably be better cooked and better served,” as indeed it was.

After days of frugality it was indeed a treat to partake of a tasty soup, omelette of the freshest of eggs, chicken of the tenderest, grapes and pears just gathered. “I regret that the coffee is not up to the mark,” complained Pierre, who himself waited on them, “but what can you expect? C’est la guerre.”

Madame came from the kitchen rather flushed and embarrassed to ask timidly if Victor could find place in his luggage for a small package which she wished to send to her son. “It is but one pair of socks and another little thing,” she explained.

“I can find room for a dozen pairs of socks,” he responded heartily, “and would be glad to carry that many.”

“But no, monsieur, that would not be possible,” returned Madame. “One pair is all I have ready,” at which innocent reply Victor laughed heartily, rather to the discomfiture of the good little woman, who did not see the humor of it, and to turn the subject said to Lucie: “Perhaps mademoiselle would like to see a small thing I am sending. If monsieur can wait till I have put up the parcel.”

Victor assured her that time was no object just then. He would walk in the garden, smoke a cigarette, exchange views with Monsieur Pierre who perhaps would like to ask intimate questions about his son. Madame beckoned to Lucie who went off with her to an inner room. From a drawer Madame drew forth the socks and a little box which she opened and handed to Lucie to examine.

“And what are these?” asked Lucie as she held up two queer little figures, two or three inches long.

Madame smiled. “Those,” she said, “are Nenette and Rintintin. I am sending them to my son.”

Lucie regarded them with a puzzled expression. “But why—are they, does one make any use of them?”

Madame smiled. “You do not know? I must then tell you that Nenette and Rintintin bring good luck. They protect a poilu from the Zeppelins, from the aircraft guns and all that. One must not ask for them. They must be bestowed voluntarily. They must not be bought. A friend must make them. They are little creatures of good luck.”

“How delightful! I wish I could make a pair for Victor.”

“Why not?”

“I could not without a pattern. With one to imitate I think I could, and if not my friend Odette, who is so clever, could help me.”

Madame considered the situation for a moment. She sincerely wished to aid Lucie in her project. A happy thought came to her. “When does monsieur return?”

“To-morrow night.”

“Then, mademoiselle, I will tell you what we will do: You will take charge of the package. We will tell monsieur that you keep it safe for him and you can then make your little figures, to-morrow, we will say, return them to the parcel here, and give it to monsieur before he leaves. I am sure you will not forget to put them in with the socks and the so short note I am about to write.”

“Oh, madame, how very kind!” cried Lucie. “I will take the utmost care, I assure you, and will not fail to do up the parcel neatly and give it to Victor, though”—She paused suddenly and a look of disappointment came over her face as she stood looking down at the little figures she held.

“What is it, chérie?” asked Madame solicitously.

“It is this, madame. I am afraid after all that I shall not be able to make them, for you see we are refugees who have scarcely more than we now wear. Where then would I get materials?”

“Pauvre petite, if that is all it is a matter soon mended. It takes so very little, you see, and if you will allow me I shall be glad to furnish what you may need. Should I not be permitted to do this much for a comrade of my Honoré? It is a very small matter indeed.”

This delicate way of putting it quite eased Lucie’s mind, so she accepted the offer as simply as possible and returned to find Paulette taking a comfortable nap in a corner and Victor out in the garden with Monsieur Pierre.

Victor settled the bill and the guests parted from their hosts with many polite phrases on both sides. It was not within the limits of Paulette’s curiosity to refrain from asking if it were not very expensive, this meal, and they were barely out of hearing when she put the question.

“But no,” Victor assured her. “If I were to tell you the price you would at once establish yourself permanently at the restaurant Honoré. It was in vain that I protested at the small price. Monsieur Pierre insisted that it was his regular charge for a breakfast and nothing would induce him to take a sou more. Did I think he would cheat a friend and that friend his son’s comrade? Therefore you see there was nothing left to say.”

“It may be his regular price,” commented Paulette shrewdly, “but I venture to say that he has never before given this same menu.”

“Now then,” said Victor, “we have done our duty by my friend Honoré as well as to our own appetites, there is then the next thing. Shall we go back as we came, or shall we take the Metro after having had a walk in the Bois which shall make us the more ready for our dinner in the city when the time comes?”

“Another meal, Victor?” exclaimed Lucie.

“Why not? Doesn’t one dine on Sundays?”

“Yes, but not when one has had such a feast.”

“That is not the point. The point is that when I am here on leave I intend to eat all I can, see all I can, enjoy myself to the limit of my opportunities.”

Paulette lifted her eyebrows and gave her expressive shrug of the shoulders. “Your opportunities must be very few, monsieur, if the height of your enjoyment is in the society of an old peasant woman and a little girl.”

“Would you have me spend all my time in making new acquaintances? Is anything better than old friends? But you have not told me, Lucie, which you prefer, the walk through the Bois or the return trip on the river.”

Lucie looked down dubiously at her shoes now much the worse for wear. “If my shoes will stand it I should prefer the walk, but the soles have become very thin. You see the pair I had on when I left home gave out before we reached Paris, and these are now the only ones I have.”

“We will try to avoid the damp places, and if we come to any path too wet I can carry you over.”

“Monsieur!” exclaimed Paulette, quite scandalized.

“It would be quite easy for me, I can assure you,” responded Victor imperturbably. “After the load a soldier must become accustomed to, the burden of carrying Mademoiselle Lucie would be nothing.”

“Coquin!” cried Paulette, shaking her finger at him. “If any one must lift mademoiselle it will be I.”

“Then we must try to avoid the wet places,” returned Victor.

They turned into a street which led them to the Bois de Boulogne. Victor had provided himself with a little map which he consulted from time to time, but in spite of it they did wander a little from their route and actually did happen upon a moist by-path before which there was a discussion.

Victor stooped down to examine it. “There is only one little place where it is very wet,” he said, “and I can carry you over that, Lucie.”

“You will do nothing of the kind,” declared Paulette, bristling up. “If mademoiselle cannot walk without getting her feet wet I will carry her.”

“And a pretty spectacle it would be,” protested Victor, “if any one were to come along, to behold a soldier permitting a woman to do such a thing. Are we men permitted to show no chivalry?”

“Zut!” exclaimed Paulette, snapping her fingers. “That for your chivalry; it is all because you wish to have your own way.”

“La! La!” cried Lucie, “are you two going to spoil the day by quarreling over me? No one shall carry me. I shall walk.”

“And get your feet wet,” grumbled Paulette.

“A happy thought!” cried Victor, whipping out his newspaper. “We will arrange this. Step upon the paper, Lucie.” He spread the doubled paper upon the spot, Lucie put out her little slim foot, stepped lightly and was over without further ado. Victor picked up the paper, looked at the footprint for a second, then with a chuckle, folded the paper, put it back in his pocket and followed on.

Pom Pom, always in the lead, enjoyed his day quite as much as the rest, at least he had not the somber thoughts which haunted Lucie during every silence. To be sure these silences were not many, for the young people chatted constantly while Pom Pom explored, dashed on ahead, lay down to rest till the others came up, and was quite as tired a member of the party as any when at last they stopped at a modest restaurant on a side street.

“Another home of a comrade, Victor?” asked Lucie smiling.

“No, although the place was recommended by one. We shall not fare so well as we did this morning, I fancy, but I have the password which will probably serve to bring out such food as they have, and it will be well cooked, though simple. Are you tired, Lucie, and are those shoes entirely worn out?”

Lucie looked down at her right foot. “This one is the worst,” she said; “the other will last, but it is unfortunate that one must have two shoes.”

“That is one of those unpleasant truths we must face in this world,” returned Victor, laughing. “You should be hungry after your long walk.”

“Yes, but I have walked farther,” returned Lucie, a shadow crossing her face.

“But that is past,” said Victor cheerfully.

Lucie made no reply, but gave her attention to the soup which was now served them, and the meal went on. It was not quite so lively as that of the morning, for in the first place it was not so appetizing, and they were all tired in the second place. Then, too, to-morrow would be a working day, to which Paulette at least looked forward with no pleasure. It promised, however, a pleasanter prospect to Lucie who anticipated the agreeable task of fashioning a Nenette and Rintintin for Victor. She looked down at the little parcel which she had placed on the table beside her.

“You’d better give that to me now,” said Victor.

Lucie shook her head. “No, I promised Madame I would take charge of it till you were ready with your farewells.”

“She seems to have very little confidence in me,” remarked Victor.

“It might be for that reason or it might be for some other,” returned Lucie mysteriously.

“Are you inviting me to guess?”

“Perhaps—but no, I do not wish you to. If there is another reason I will tell you when you come to go.”

“More and more mysterious. Very well, you must not forget to tell me.”

Lucie knew that this was not likely. She held fast to the little parcel all the way home, and could scarcely wait to show the tiny figures to Odette after Victor had left. “You will help me, Odette?”

“To be sure, and perhaps I can make a pair, too. There might be a soldier to whom I could give them,” Odette returned. “To be sure I know of no one now, but he might come my way, and it is just as well to be prepared.” She laughed gleefully.

Lucie was very impatient till the morning’s work was out of the way, Paulette off for the day, and Odette ready to sit down with her. “It is like playing with dolls again, isn’t it?” she said.

“But it is much more to the purpose,” declared Odette, sorting out the materials.

“There appears to be quite enough for two sets,” said Lucie, “so we can divide, which will be very nice. You can have half to pay for helping me.”

“But you might want another pair, for your father, for instance.”

Lucie had not thought of this, and was not quite sure whether her father would be frivolous enough to appreciate the attention. She considered the matter while Odette busied herself in selecting what was needed for Nenette and what for Rintintin. After a moment she looked up, bunching the stuffs in her nimble little fingers. “These will be more than enough,” she decided. “I think with economy one could get out another couple.”

“That would be fine,” cried Lucie, “so let us begin. How should one do it?”

Odette deftly started to pucker the stuff into shape, and before long Nenette was called into existence, then Rintintin was soon in condition to be given his name.

“Aren’t they precious?” exclaimed Lucie, dangling them before her. “I shall really get too fond of them and shall want to keep them. It is just as well that Victor is going to-night or I might be tempted.”

“We will make the others and can keep at least one couple.”

“Until your soldier appears and then they must be given up. I shall send mine to papa at once. We must show them to Paulette. Shall you let your aunt see yours?”

“She would not be interested.”

Lucie hesitated before she asked a question which was on the end of her tongue, but at last she did say: “This aunt, Odette, is she kind to you?”

“She does not beat me,” replied Odette with a little wry smile, “and I am grateful to her for letting me stay with her when I was left with no one. I think that perhaps she is sorry that she allowed me, for it is very hard to find food for all. The ladies pay me for knitting the socks, but there is not any too much of that work to do, and I wish I might go back to the country. I am strong enough to work in the fields and it would be better than this.”

“That is what Paulette says. I wish, myself, that we were all there. Look at this second Rintintin, Odette. Isn’t he a droll fellow; I think I like him better than the first.”

In due course of time the freakish little figures were finished. Odette carried hers away. Lucie danced hers before the eyes of Pom Pom who tried to snap them up, then they were put away till Paulette should return and the business of dinner should be over.

“Aren’t they funny, Paulette?” asked Lucie as she displayed the fantastic little creatures. “This is what Odette and I have been doing to-day, making these.”

“Have you then gone back to playing with dolls?”

“Oh, no, no. You don’t understand. These are Nenette and Rintintin. Madame Blondot told me of them yesterday and gave me the material for making them. She has sent a pair to her son. One makes them, you see, to give to a poilu for good luck. They carry good fortune, Madame said, protect from danger. They must be given voluntarily. The soldier does not ask for them or that takes away the charm. So then, these are for Victor and these for papa.”

Paulette examined them with interest. She was as full of superstitions as most peasant folk. “One never can tell,” she remarked, “a little thing that seems ridiculous, a horseshoe, for instance, brings good luck. It is worth while not to pass by anything. I have no capacity for making such things; if I had—”

She paused but Lucie understood that she wished that her boy might have two of the farcical little mascots. He shall have, Lucie told herself, remembering those Odette was keeping for some soldier. Why not Jean?

Then came Victor to make his adieux and to get the little parcel to take to Honoré. “It seems much smaller than it did,” he said as Lucie handed it to him.

She laughed. “And yet I have not abstracted the socks. Here also, Victor, is something for you; Nenette and Rintintin.”

“Ah-h!” Victor took them with a pleased look. “You made them for me?”

“I made them, though Odette helped; she is so clever, you know. They bear a charm, as perhaps you have heard. They will keep danger from you.”

“They will do something else; they will remind me of my little friend, Lucie, who has taken the trouble to make them for me.” He fastened them to his coat. “I made inquiries about your father to-day and learn that he has been removed to another place, a chateau, where he, with other convalescents, will remain till they can return to their regiments. I have written to him, and have asked him to communicate with you as soon as possible. Here is his address.”

“I am glad, so glad. A thousand thanks, dear Victor, for doing this. But my mother, my mother?”

Victor shook his head sadly. “I am sorry, but there is no news there. But cheer up, dear little Lucie, do not look so mournful. Any day you may have news of her. In this war surprises are what one must expect. You will write to me and tell me how you prosper?”

“Oh, yes, and you?”

“Will do the same. I shall cherish Nenette and Rintintin as if they were my own children. I came only to say good-by, for I must soon be getting off.”

“It is sad that you must go.”

“But has it not been a wonderful holiday? When I get another we will celebrate again. Adieu! Adieu! et bon chance!”

“Bon chance! Bon chance! Victor. Adieu! Adieu!” from Lucie.

“Adieu, monsieur. Que Dieu vous soit en aide,” from Paulette. And Victor was clattering down the stairs and out into the dim streets.

But the small shadow that followed him a trifle in the rear was not cast by the bobbing forms of Nenette and Rintintin.

CHAPTER XI
A DOG AND HIS DAY

IT was in the middle of the night that Lucie woke with a consciousness of something missing. The little furry ball always curled up at her feet was not there. She sat up in bed. “Pom Pom” she called softly, feeling along the edge of her cot and reaching over toward the foot. But no moist little tongue licked her hand in response. “He has gone to Paulette,” decided Lucie, for once in a great while he took a notion to cuddle down by the older woman. Having made up her mind that this was the way of it Lucie snuggled down again and it was not till morning that she discovered that Pom Pom was really gone.

“He was here last night when Victor came,” said the girl distressedly. “You remember, Paulette, how he jumped on Victor and barked so sharply that to stop him Victor took him in his lap.”

“He may have followed him downstairs and have been shut in—or out,” Paulette suggested.

“Then he would be back by now scratching at the door. He has lingered once or twice down there but always he has come back in a hurry; he would do it now.”

“Unless some one picked him up.”

“Oh, Paulette, what a dreadful thought!” Lucie clasped her hands agitatedly. “I will go down at once to see if Mathilde knows anything about him.” This was no sooner said than done. Downstairs flew Lucie to find and question Mathilde.

“But no, mademoiselle,” said Mathilde. “The little dog? Yes, yes, I know him well. I have not seen him, nor have I heard him. If he had come to the door I would have let him in, for I would have understood, I, that one does not like to lose a pet. There is sorrow enough that cannot be avoided in these days without adding anxiety over a loss of that kind.”

“If you should see him, madame. If you will inquire of those in the neighborhood when you have a chance. Some one may have picked him up without knowing where he belongs.”

“If I find him I will send him up to you flying. Rest assured of that.”

This was the best that could be done and Lucie returned very miserable. “Is it not true that troubles never come singly?” she said. “Victor brings me sad news of my grandfather and now comes the loss of my darling Pom Pom.”

“But Monsieur Victor also brought you good news of your father. Do not despair so soon, little one. The day is but begun; you may have him safe before I get home. Have you inquired of Odette?”

“No, for it seemed no use.”

“It will do no harm, for he may have scratched at our door and we may not have heard him. I sleep heavily these days, and then he may have gone to Odette as the next friend to rely upon. I go now, chérie. Do not despond.”

She went out and Lucie followed as far as the next door, upon which she tapped. The doors now were not locked since the two little girls had become intimates and wished to run back and forth at will. Hearing no response to her rap Lucie went in. Odette was sitting, elbows on window sill, staring out into the street. It was a gray day, somber and chill, for winter was at hand. “Have you seen Pom Pom?” Lucie made her query without further delay.

“Pom Pom? No, why, have you lost him?”

Lucie dropped down on the floor and covered her face with her hands. “He is gone, gone, the dear little dog whom I loved so well, and, whom I promised to take good care of.”

“When did you see him last?”

“When Victor was here last evening. He was so overjoyed when Victor arrived. You never saw such delight. Paulette thinks he may have followed Victor downstairs, but of course Victor would have sent him back.”

“If he saw him. This is what I think; that he followed your friend to the street. Monsieur sent him back. He returned to find the door shut.”

“He would have waited there till morning unless some one picked him up. Oh, Odette, I have lost him, lost him, and now I no more have a dear little dog to love me and to love.”

“But you have others; me, I have no one, not even a dog to love or to love me.”

Lucie looked up through her tears. “But Odette, I love you.”

Odette smiled rather sadly. “Not as you do Pom Pom. You would not weep if you were to lose me out of your days. Don’t cry, Lucie. Let us go out and look for him. This is such an unusual occasion that I think we need not ask permission. We will need to go only around the neighborhood.”

It was a comfort to Lucie that she could make some active effort toward looking for the little dog, but though they went from dairy to bakery, from bakery to butcher shop, and so on the rounds no one had seen or heard anything of the lost Pom Pom. So they returned quite hopeless and discouraged, and Lucie spent a melancholy day.

Odette tried to comfort her as best she could, succeeding in making her laugh more than once, though immediately she would lapse into a fit of weeping. “I shouldn’t care so much if I could know he would be well cared for,” she mourned. “A little dumb beast is so helpless; he cannot tell his troubles if he is neglected and ill treated. He has never known anything but kindness.”

“Then he is better off than many human beings,” returned Odette somberly.

Lucie looked at her through her tears. “Odette, are you ill treated?” she asked.

“I suppose one should not mind harsh words, and should not call oneself ill treated who has nothing more than that, but, you see, even your dog wanted affection, and you are mourning because you think he has none, or, perhaps, has none, while I—there is not a soul on earth to give me a word of love, much less a caress.”

Lucie moved close up to her and put her arms tightly around her. “My little Odette,” she whispered, “my dear Odette whom I love. I shall miss my dear dog, but I am thankful that I have you, my friend.”

“Lucie, Lucie,” murmured Odette, “you do not know how I love you, how I have longed to have you love me. I am only a little peasant girl, but I can be faithful and true. Do you know that many times when I have seen you fondling your dog I have wished that I, too, were a dog, for then some one might be as good to me as you were to Pom Pom.”

“That seems very sad,” returned Lucie, “but it is better to be a friend than a dog, and that you are and always will be. Do you know what I think, Odette? I think when this war is over that it would be a fine thing for you to go back with us to our town. We must see about that. I shall talk of it to Paulette who already likes you so much. She is not one to take fancies, but she has said to me: ‘She is a bright one, that Odette. With a little training and experience she will do well,’ and that is a great deal for Paulette to say, for she is very chary of her praise.”

“This may be a sad day for you, Lucie, but it is a very happy one for me, or would be if you were not so miserable.”

“I shall try not to be miserable, for who knows what may happen before the day is out? That is what my mother used to tell me. So bright and cheerful, such a sunny nature, mother had. I think, Odette, that all other sorrow would seem as nothing if I could see her again. Even if I knew her to be safe and well, I could be cheerful.”

“I can understand that,” Odette agreed. “That day may come, and sooner than you expect.”

It seemed that Odette was a true prophet, for that very evening the clouds began to break away for Lucie. “Well, mademoiselle,” said Paulette when she came in, “who is sending you presents? Here is a letter too.”

“But alas, no news of Pom Pom,” returned Lucie.

“I do not yet despair. He may be shut up somewhere and will come to us fast enough when he is free.”

This sounded encouraging, so Lucie opened her letter. “It is from Victor,” she announced, beginning to read.

“Humph!” exclaimed Paulette. “He loses no time.”

Lucie paid no attention to this; she was eagerly reading the page before her. “Paulette, Paulette,” she cried suddenly, “listen to this. Oh, that bad Pom Pom!”

Paulette dropped the soup ladle-back into the kettle. “Mon Dieu!” she cried. “What is this about Pom Pom?”

“Listen and I will read about that ungrateful little one. This is what Victor writes: ‘Dear Lucie: The train is about to start but before it goes I must tell you that Pom Pom is here and that I shall have to take him with me as there is no time to return him to you. The boys will be happy to receive him as a mascot, and I hope no harm will come to him. I know you will miss him, but if we come out of this safely you shall have him again. Au revoir. Victor. P.S. Nenette and Rintintin send their respectful greetings. That little rascal Pom Pom followed me all the way, but I did not discover it till too late, for he kept well behind me. V.’ Did you ever know a dog so clever? He knew perfectly well that he should not go with Victor, but it is as I said on Sunday; he loves Victor best, for he was his first beloved. That is constancy for you.”

“There is no friend more faithful than a dog,” returned Paulette, beginning again to dip out the soup.

“We shall miss him,” said Lucie sadly, “but I am sure he felt that he owed his first duty to his master. I was a second consideration. Very well, that must be accepted. I am glad to know that at least he is in good hands. I must tell Odette.”

“Take your soup first.”

“It is very hot and I will not stay a minute.”

“I know the minutes of maidens,” grumbled Paulette.

But Lucie was not to be deterred, and went off, her minute truly lengthening to five. Paulette, however, in spite of her grumbling, poured her bowl of soup back into the pot where it kept hot for her.

“I should like to open the parcel,” said Lucie between spoonfuls of soup. “I haven’t the least idea what it is, have you, Paulette?”

“Not I.”

“But who could have sent it? What is it like? Did you feel it?”

Paulette smiled. “Such curiosity. It feels like a box, or, no, like something hard. One does not get many boxes these days. C’est la guerre.”

“Are you sure it is for me?”

“There is the name, the street, the number, even the floor. Madame Mathilde gave it to me with the letter as I came in.”

“If I were not so hungry I would open it directly. Do you think this a pretty good soup, Paulette?”

“Not so bad.”

“Will not mamma be surprised when she learns how I can cook a meal all by myself?”

Paulette was silent.

“Oh, I know what you are thinking; you do not believe that we shall see mamma again.”

“I said nothing.”

“No, but I know that look which means so much. I was very doubtful myself before this news of Pom Pom. I have been so unhappy all day, Paulette, and but for Odette I think I should have died. What should I do without Odette when I have no more a Pom Pom?”

“It is a great satisfaction to me that you have some one to keep you company while I must be away.”

“And some one of whom you approve, for you do approve of her, don’t you? Of course she is not of Annette’s class, but she is a dear, fine girl and I shall love her always and keep her as my friend. When mamma knows her she will not object, I am sure.”

“You are speaking very often of your mamma this evening.”

“Yes, because something tells me that I shall see her again. That report of papa which Victor gave us has somehow given me a feeling of being nearer to my parents. For a time I felt as if I had none. Now I feel that I have.”

“Heaven grant that it may be so,” responded Paulette piously as she rose from the frugal meal and began to clear the table.

It was a scantily furnished, poor little place, two rooms and a queer sort of kitchenette contrived from a dark closet where a sink and running water were established, together with a tiny stove. It was already a problem how they were to be kept warm in winter. The larger of the two rooms held Paulette’s cot, three chairs, a table, and a set of shelves which served as cupboard. In Lucie’s room was her cot with one chair and an iron washstand over which hung a small mirror. The floors were uncovered and the only household utensils were those which had been brought from the old home in that basket which was retained instead of the one containing food. More than once Paulette and her charge had congratulated themselves that it was this instead of the other basket.

“The food would have been eaten long ago,” Paulette declared, “but look what remains.”

The matter of clearing away did not occupy many minutes and then Lucie opened her package. It was done up firmly, but with not more paper than barely necessary, so it was almost at once that Lucie saw the contents. “Of all things, Paulette,” she cried, “a pair of shoes! It is you who have done this to play a joke upon me.”

“You are quite on the wrong track, my dear,” responded Paulette, picking up one of the shoes and examining it carefully. “Even supposing I had the will I could not have afforded shoes like these. You should try them on.”

This Lucie did not hesitate to do, stretching out her little foot to be admired. “Do you see, Paulette? They fit exactly, a trifle wide, perhaps, but that is a good fault. Now who in the world could have chosen so exactly but you? No one else but Odette could possibly know the size, and poor Odette has no money to spend on a gift. Come, Paulette, confess that you have done this to give me a pleasant surprise.”

“But I tell you that I have nothing to do with it. Shall I then take credit for a thing which I have not done? No, no, my child, it is some other and I can guess who. I may be a stupid old pig but it does not tax my brains to guess the giver.”

Lucie put on the other shoe and sat looking admiringly at her outstretched feet, all the time at a loss to read a puzzle which the older woman had so readily solved. She picked up the paper which had come around the shoes and examined the address attentively. She shook out the paper, then she took off the shoes and looked inside. “I cannot guess,” she said at last.

Paulette laughed a little grimly. “This person took your measure very correctly, nevertheless. It was a clever trick. The good heart, the good heart of him, and the delicacy. Otherwise one could not accept, no, of course, one could not. Now there is nothing to say. There is no proof possible. One can only use guesswork, but that is easy enough.”

Then suddenly it dawned upon Lucie. “Victor!” she cried. “Of course I remember now that he made me step upon the newspaper, and that the footprint, that very muddy footprint, was quite distinct. He folded up the paper and put it back in his pocket. I wondered a little at his doing that.”

“One can see through a millstone,” responded Paulette. “Even I have solved deeper riddles.”

Lucie continued to regard the shoes thoughtfully. “It is as you say, Paulette, under different circumstances I could not accept them. Even now it seems very strange that Victor Guerin should be giving Lucie Du Bois a pair of shoes. I think even now I shall have to ask him outright, and I shall not wear the shoes till I have his answer.”

Paulette nodded approbation of this proud speech. “Continue to keep your pride as long as you can, my child,” she said. “We may have to accept help but the moment has not come yet.”

“If it does come,” returned Lucie, “I hope I may be able to return it in a proper way. I shall write to Victor at once.”

But before an answer could come to her letter came direct news from her father which relieved her mind as well as Paulette’s. “You cannot imagine, my precious child,” he wrote, “the great relief which Victor Guerin’s letter brought me. All this time and not a word from you! My imagination has pictured a thousand dreadful things which might have befallen you. That you are safe and well gives me great joy, and it is the utmost satisfaction I feel in knowing that you are with Paulette who will take good care of you, I am sure. I have made arrangements to have a certain sum paid you every month, and this I hope will give you more comfort. I have nearly recovered my health and expect soon to go back to my duties.” Then followed definite directions about the monthly allowance, words of endearment, messages to Paulette and a promise to write often, but the closing words, “Not a line from your mother,” were discouraging.

Lucie could scarcely wait for Paulette to come home on the day this letter was received, and there was great danger that the dinner would either be spoiled or that there would be no dinner at all. A dozen times the child ran out to see if she could catch sight of Paulette toiling up the stairs. At last appeared the well-worn shawl, the black handkerchief tied around the head. “Paulette, Paulette,” cried Lucie, “come quickly. I have news, good news.”

Paulette quickened her tread and arrived quite out of breath. “Madame? Your mother?” she panted.

“No,” Lucie caught her breath quickly, “but a letter from papa at last. Come in and I will read it to you. How tired you are, my poor Paulette, but never mind, you shall hear the news and that will make you feel better.” She read the letter, interrupted by many exclamations and comments and when she had finished she rushed over to hug the good woman who, brave enough under misfortune, was wiping her eyes at this good news.

“Now we need have no fear of the winter,” said Lucie excitedly. “We shall be able to keep warm and to have more food. Will it be enough, this money, to keep us without your working, Paulette? I do dislike to see you coming home so worn out. You walk all the way and it is not well for you to stay in that heated place and then come out into the cold.”

“It is better that I walk,” protested Paulette, “for I am less liable to take cold doing so. As for my not working, my little child, that is not to be thought of. Better that we have more comforts than merely eke out a subsistence. However, I can look out for something better and who knows what chance may bring?”

“It seems as if there were no evil without some good,” remarked Lucie reflectively. “I miss Pom Pom so very much; this morning it seemed as if I could not endure it, then came this letter. Dear little Pom Pom, I do hope he is well and happy. He will be if it depends upon Victor.”

“This money of which your father speaks. How does one get it? Read that again.”

Lucie re-read the part relating to the money. “You see,” she said, “that we have no trouble about it. Some one will bring it to us, which is very good. I wonder how soon. I shall have to open the door to whoever it is, Paulette.”

“I will speak to Mathilde about that. She will interrogate and if it is a proper person there can be no objection. She has the face of a fish and the manner of an ill-tempered goat, but she is not so bad. The heart is there, though one must not expect always to find it.”

“She was very, very kind and interested about Pom Pom, and how she laughed when I told her of his following Victor. ‘When one of them wants to be a poilu there is no keeping them,’ she said. I think she is very fond of animals, more than of people.”

“Probably with good reason,” returned Paulette.

“Even though I no longer have Pom Pom I shall not be lonely to-morrow,” remarked Lucie, “for I shall write a long letter to my father, and I shall begin to expect a letter from Victor and to look for the person with the money. We are having a good deal of excitement, Paulette.”

Paulette shrugged her shoulders. “Thank heaven it is not of a different kind.”

CHAPTER XII
TERRORS BY NIGHT

VICTOR’S letter did not come the next day, though the person with the money did, giving Lucie a greater surprise than even the shoes. She had eaten her slight midday meal, consisting of a small bowl of soup left from the dinner of the day before, and a piece of not very good bread. She was washing the bowl and picturing to herself the sort of person likely to be her father’s messenger, a meager little old man probably, all the young ones had gone to the war, it seemed; this one would wear spectacles, have thin gray hair and be a trifle deaf; he would hold his hand back of his ear and say “Plait-il?” when she answered his questions; and then came the knock at the door.

Lucie jumped. The exciting moment had arrived. She went to open, fully prepared to see the sort of person her fancy had created, and was so taken aback that she could hardly reply to the question: “Is this where Mlle. Lucie Du Bois lives?” for instead of a snuffy old man there stood a radiant, well-dressed young woman.

“I am Lucie Du Bois”; the answer came stammeringly.

“May I come in?” The young lady smiled.

“Oh, surely. I beg your pardon, but I—I—was not prepared to see a young lady.”

“What then?” Again the lady smiled so delightfully that Lucie smiled in return as she said: “Oh, an old man, quite an old one.”

“Then you must be disappointed.”

“O, no, quite the contrary.”

“I am Mlle. Lowndes, Nora Lowndes.”

“Then you are not French.”

“No, I am an American.”

“Then, won’t you please speak English? It has been so long since I heard it.”

“You speak English?” Miss Lowndes looked surprised.

“But yes. I speak it, you see, because my mother is American, and would have me speak as well as read her language.”

“How perfectly delightful. It is much easier for me, of course. Let us begin right away. Shall I sit here? Of course you want to know about your father first thing and then we will talk business.”

“You have seen my father? You know him?”

“Oh, yes, for I have been helping the nurses at Madame Hautecœur’s chateau which she has given for a convalescents’ home during the war. I have just come from there.”

“Oh, miss, you have just come? You have seen him so recently?”

“Only three days ago. He was looking much better, still a little pale as would be expected from one so long a patient in a hospital, but still doing very well, and soon able to go back to his regiment. You cannot believe what that letter from the young soldier, what is his name? did for him. He seems to have taken on new life, and I do not wonder, all these months without a word of his wife and daughter.”

“It was this way, you see: at first Paulette would not let me write because we were at such a pass, unhappy refugees. We were expecting every day to meet my grandfather and that everything then would be settled, but you see my grandfather never came. Does my father know about this? That we shall never see dear grandfather again?”

Miss Lowndes laid her hand caressingly on Lucie’s. “Yes, dear child, he knows; your friend told him in his letter.”

“That was kind, but it was like Victor to do it. He would know that it might be hard for me to tell my father.”

Miss Lowndes nodded. “I like that Victor. And so you did not write to your father at all?”

“Not at first, but after a while, but it seems he did not get the letter. Then we found that he had been moved to another hospital and did not know where to write. You see, mademoiselle, Miss I mean—”

Miss Lowndes smiled. “That isn’t the way we say it, dear. We would say Miss Lowndes, or just go on talking without saying Miss anything.”

“I am forgetting some of my English, I am afraid. You see, Miss Lowndes, Paulette, she is the old peasant woman who took care of me when I was a baby, and who has always lived with us. Paulette is so lost here in Paris, and I am a very ignorant little girl. Neither of us knew where to go to find out about things; Paulette would be afraid, anyway, for she has a great fear of governments and officials, and but for Victor I do not know when we should have heard about papa.”

“And who is this nice Victor person?”

“He is the cousin of my best friend, Annette Le Brun who lived next door to us, at least she was my best friend; I do not know that I shall ever see her again, but now I have Odette.”

“Tell me about Odette.”

“She is also my next door neighbor. Like myself she is a refugee, but it is much worse for her. I have Paulette who loves me and would work her fingers off for me, but Odette has lost her father and mother. She has no one at all but a cross old great-aunt who wishes her off her hands. You understand then, miss, I mean Miss Lowndes, that it is not very happy for Odette, though since we have become friends it is better. She is so bright, so full of courage, this Odette, that I admire her much.”

“I must make her acquaintance, and Paulette’s, too. I know I shall love Paulette. Now to business. In this envelope is a sum of money which your father sends. I am sure you must need it, for I really don’t see how you have managed all this time.”

“Paulette had her savings, you see, and then for a time she had good work in two families as femme de ménage. They have left the city, unfortunately, and now poor Paulette works in a laundry where she gets small pay, but it is much better than nothing.”

“Dear Paulette, what a treasure she must be. Now, then, this is not your allotment to which, as the daughter of a captain, you are entitled. I shall see to your getting that, but your father wishes that you have this, too, every month, and I shall see that you receive it, that is, so long as I am in the city and you are here, too.”

“Paulette is always talking of going to the country where she can work in the fields, which she would like much better than what she is doing.”

“I don’t blame her. We shall have to talk about that later on. I am working with the Committee for Devastated France, and shall be here until I am sent elsewhere. Now, dear child, if there is anything I can do I want you to be sure to let me know. I want you to feel that you have a friend, a countrywoman of your mother, whom you can turn to at any time. I will give you a card with the address which will always find me.”

“My mother, I don’t suppose my father has heard anything of her,” said Lucie wistfully. “Has he any idea where she is?”

“I am afraid not. We think she must be in one of the towns behind the German lines, so of course she cannot communicate with her people. There is no reason to believe she is not safe. We are all making every effort to get news of her but so far have not succeeded. You shall know the very instant we do hear anything. Let me see, I suppose Sunday would be the best day for seeing Paulette, and Odette, too. Of course you, dear child, are to look upon me as a friend, but I want to find out things that can be done for any refugee, and this little Odette, I want to learn more about her. I cannot stop now, but Sunday I shall see you again, and please call me Miss Nora, it sounds so much more friendly.” She stooped to give Lucie a kiss and went off casting a bright glance over her shoulder as she went out.

Lucie lost no time in hunting up Odette. This most wonderful thing must be talked over at once, then, when that was discussed from every side, there was the long letter to her father to be written, so that the afternoon was all too short, and Paulette came near finding no dinner ready when she arrived.

Lucie showed her the money triumphantly, saying: “And now you will not have to go to that old laundry any more.”

But Paulette was entirely too canny to agree to this. “Why should I not?” she asked. “Am I then to throw away good money merely that I may sit with my hands folded? I shall work while I am able, for the winter at least, and in the spring we shall see what we shall see.”

The next pleasant thing to happen was the Sunday visit of Miss Lowndes, who made herself so agreeable that even Paulette, chary of praise at most times, declared her a “young lady of parts.” Following this event came the letter from Victor. An amusing letter it was, of rollicking nonsense, and giving no hint of discomfort or discouragement.

“About those shoes,” he wrote, “I am very glad they were left at your door. I think Pom Pom must have sent them, at least when I asked him about them and charged him with being the giver he did not deny it, but looked very conscious, and from his expression I should surmise that he knows more than he chooses to tell. Very pretty of him, wasn’t it, to send you a parting gift? By the way, he has captured all hearts, if he has not yet captured a Boche, but we all expect such great things of him that there is no telling what I shall have to report when I next see you.”

In consequence, so far as the shoes were concerned, Lucie was no wiser than before, and concluded that whatever Victor might know he did not mean to tell; therefore, Paulette advised her to accept the situation and wear the shoes, which she did.

So the weeks wore on. Autumn slipped into winter. Christmas came and went, rather a sorrowful day for all in spite of an effort on the part of every one to make it bright and cheerful. Miss Lowndes came with little gifts for Paulette and Lucie, and a basketful of food for the old women next door, but no one felt very gay; memories were too poignant.

But the New Year brought two bright occurrences. Jean had his first permission, granted every four months to the men in the trenches, but somehow a little delayed in his case. Paulette took a week’s holiday and undertook to show her son the city, with Lucie and Odette as two of the party. Big, honest Jean was rather shy before Lucie, whom he knew only as the young lady of his former employer’s family, but he was more at home with Odette, who presented him with Nenette and Rintintin to his delight and Paulette’s satisfaction. It was while he was still on leave and was making his daily visit to his mother that news came from Captain Du Bois, news that made Lucie happier than any gift, for he wrote that he had had a message from her mother, a mysteriously sent message, believed to have been smuggled in by some one through the German lines. At all events there was no inkling of how it was sent. The words: “I am safe and well,” were all the message contained but they were enough to cheer Lucie and her father.

“Nothing, no New Year’s gift, could have made me so happy,” Lucie told Miss Lowndes who had come in that very day. “Perhaps next year the war will be over and we shall be together again in our home.”

“I would not expect too much, dear,” said Miss Lowndes, “though now I think you may hope to see your mother again.” And this hope buoyed Lucie up in many of the tragic days to come.

After Jean’s departure Paulette went back to her work, but because of her son’s insistence she shortened her hours and reached home while it was still daylight. “I shall not have a happy moment if I know you are out after dark,” he said. “With those Zeppelins about I shall not be satisfied to have you exposed at night.”

“But they may come in daylight, and one is not safe in one’s own home,” protested Paulette.

“Just the same I shall not be satisfied,” returned Jean doggedly, and Paulette yielded.

Perhaps it was just as well that she did, for along in March came a disaster which, literally, struck near home, and which affected each one of the little group occupying the rooms overlooking the old convent garden. It was poor old Amelie Durand who was the victim. She was coming home when the Zeppelin swooped down upon Paris to do its deadly work, and with others she was killed. Lucie, trembling and terrified at the news, cowered in a corner of her room till Paulette should come. In the next room, Odette, pale and shivering, but outwardly calm, did what she was told to do. She had no great love for this aunt of hers, old Amelie Durand, but she was her nearest of kin and this stroke of fate seemed even more ghastly than the others which had taken the ones most beloved. It was a time of fear, of dread, of confusion. Curious visitors came and went. There were footsteps on the stairs going up or down all day long. Officials of the government came to investigate. Old Henriette Jacquet, Amelie’s friend and companion, worked up to a state of excitement which made her ill, talked incessantly in a shrill, high key, to any one and every one who came in.

Lucie, who heard and saw most of all this, felt as if she were in worse case than upon that dreadful journey to the city. She started at every sound, dreading that she would next hear the threatening hum of another Zeppelin. Paulette listened to the tale of the disaster with set lips and lowering brows. “And I said I would not work in a munition factory, because of the danger,” she said nodding meditatively. “Where is one safe these days, surely not here in Paris. If those Boches can get here once, they can again.” She did not go out the next day, but she spent much time with old Henriette while Odette stayed with Lucie.

One morning Odette announced that Henriette had declared that she would not remain another week in the city. She had relatives near Poitiers and to them she would go.

“And what will you do, Odette?” asked Lucie with concern. This question had been in her mind ever since Amelie’s death.

“I do not know,” Odette answered after a moment. “I think I shall go into a munition factory. One can get work very easily, they tell me.”

“Oh, but Odette, I don’t want you to go into a munition factory. I am afraid you will be killed.”

“One may as well be killed that way as by a Zeppelin, and the pay is excellent.”

“Do you want to go, Odette?”

Odette looked at her with an inscrutable smile. “Has that anything to do with it? I place myself in danger, perhaps, but so do our soldiers and do they hesitate? I shall be helping France.”

“To be sure, but there are other ways of helping.”

“How and where?”

“In the fields. They say help is needed there for planting the crops. We shall need all the food we can get, and it seems to me that I should prefer that kind of work.”

“I should prefer it, but I do not know where to go or how to get there when I do know.”

“We can ask Miss Lowndes. I am sure she can tell us. Please, Odette, promise me that you will do nothing till I find out from Miss Lowndes.”

“And in the meantime am I to accept charity from Henriette Jacquet? No, I thank you. She has endured me simply because of my aunt. She will be leaving in a few days at the most.”

Lucie sat silent and troubled. She would like to have said at once that Odette must come in with Paulette and herself, but she was not sure how Paulette would regard such an arrangement, and Paulette could speak her mind most positively when she wished, without regard to those concerned.

However, as if Paulette had read her mind she presently appeared from next door. “Well, my child,” she began, “I do not intend to stay here to be annihilated by those Boches. Enough of the city for me. We go. We go to the fields, to the trees, the good earth. For me I have no regrets.”

“When, when do we go?” asked Lucie eagerly.

“As soon as I learn some things that must be learned,” responded Paulette oracularly. “In the meantime we prepare. You will not be triste, you, to go?”

“I shall regret nothing but leaving Odette.”

“There is nothing to regret there,” said Paulette serenely, “for she goes with us.”

Odette sprang to her feet and threw her arms around Paulette. “I? It is I, Odette Moreau, that you mean? I do not then work in the munition factory among strangers, but I shall be with you, madame, and my Lucie?”

“Why not?” returned Paulette. “Have you so many relatives that you cannot go with us? I have settled it all with this Henriette Jacquet, the stupid.” She did not explain why this epithet, but Odette had reason to believe that Henriette had not favored the arrangement, and that her objections were based upon a possible expense to herself.

Lucie settled herself comfortably on the arm of Paulette’s chair. “Now tell us all about it,” she said. “You love to be mysterious, Paulette, but this is no time for mysteries. Neither Odette nor I are in any frame of mind to be tantalized. Just go ahead and tell us as much as you know.”

Taken in this way Paulette was disposed to be communicative. “I have told you that all is not ready, but so much is true that we adopt Odette into the family. I have spoken to Mathilde. This Henriette goes. We open the door leading from our rooms into hers. The rooms are taken by the month, and the month is not up. We become one establishment in this manner. By the end of the month we learn where we shall go, and the rooms are given up.” This was quite a satisfactory report, although Paulette did keep back the fact that Henriette was ready to go at once, because Paulette had made it possible by paying the difference in the rent from the present date to the end of the month.

So poor, old, worn, cross-grained Amelie Durand passed into forgetfulness, and Henriette was not long in making her exit, leaving no memories which in any way affected the lives of her associates in Paris.

Neither Lucie nor Odette had known such happy days in Paris as the next few weeks brought them. In the first place preparations included the buying of new clothes, in which task Miss Lowndes offered to take a hand, and which meant several visits to the big shops which neither girl had ever seen. Paulette, too, turned to the American girl for advice, and because her vision was clearer and her outlook broader she was able to suggest things which had not occurred to the peasant woman.

“I should say that the first thing to do was to write to Captain Du Bois and learn his wishes,” said Miss Lowndes.

“I agree with you,” returned Paulette, “but as I am not gifted with the pen, mademoiselle, perhaps you will do this writing for me. You will be able to put the case more clearly than the child, Lucie, who will be guided by her own desires.”

“I will gladly write, for I think I know conditions pretty well. I suppose Captain Du Bois must have relatives somewhere to whom you might go.”

“I know of none who do not live in cities or so far away that it would be a miserable journey to reach them, but he has friends no doubt, and at least can advise.”

“In the meantime I will be making inquiries and it may be that a chance will come which will be exactly what would be best.”

So the letter was written, but as it happened the chance came neither through a suggestion of Captain Du Bois, nor through any scheme of Miss Lowndes, and while waiting for an answer to the letter the girls and Miss Lowndes did their shopping.

Lucie was quite ready to indulge herself in as pretty and becoming clothes as she could afford, but Odette—who would give her credit for so much good sense?—Odette insisted upon such things as she had always worn, the simple dress of a little peasant. “I am to work in the fields, mademoiselle,” she said. “How long would such a frock as Lucie’s serve me? Again I shall be thrown with the country people and I do not wish them to laugh at me or to think I am putting on airs.”

Miss Lowndes looked at her quite taken aback. “Did you ever!” she exclaimed. “I did not think of that, Odette,” she said. “You are wiser than I.” She told Paulette about it when she next saw her. The good woman nodded approvingly. “She is clever, very clever, that Odette.”

“And if you could have seen how pretty she looked in the hat that was tried on her.”

“No doubt, no doubt, but beauty is only skin deep, and does not earn the bread and butter as readily as quick wit and busy hands.”

“Yet Odette is quite pretty; she has lovely eyes. She is not so good looking as Lucie, to be sure.”

“She should not be. She is a skinny little cabbage, but she will do. If she turns out as well as she has begun, she will not be half bad. I shall keep my eye on her.”

Paulette spoke meditatively and Miss Lowndes wondered a little what was in her mind. She was to discover in due course of time.

CHAPTER XIII
OLD FRIENDS AND NEW

THEN suddenly appeared Victor on his second permission, and wearing a sergeant’s stripes, won for his tact, his influence over the men, and for his bravery during a night raid. But of this exploit he would say nothing, merely laughing off the question when Lucie asked him how he had earned his promotion. “I did nothing at all, nothing more than any one would have done if he had had the same chance. They gave me my stripes simply because of my youthful beauty.”

He came in with a rush and a dash, immediately making the whole place seem fuller of life and action. “What’s all this I hear? What’s all this?” he asked after the first salutations, “going away, are you? Well, I can scarcely blame you. Where are you going?”

“We don’t know yet,” Lucie answered.

“Then I am wiser than you. I know, I know.”

“Then why did you ask?” Lucie gave his arm a little tap, making him drop the match with which he was lighting his cigarette. “You did it just to tease. How do you know?”

“Aha! Revenge! Revenge! I shall not tell you, because you spoiled my light.”

“You will have to tell Paulette.”

“How do you know I will? I’m not afraid of Paulette. She is not a Boche.”

“And are you afraid of a Boche?”

Victor laughed and took from his pocket a letter which he handed to Paulette. “It is from Captain Du Bois,” he said.

Paulette took it with an air of importance and went to the window to read it, a slow process with her.

“You have seen my father, then, Victor?” said Lucie. “Do tell me how he looks.”

“Fit as a fiddle. We had a long talk and he charged me with this letter to Paulette.”

“And have you none for me?”

“No, but I have a message from Pom Pom.”

Lucie looked wistfully over at Paulette, whose lips were moving as she laboriously read the words before her. “I think I might see the letter, too,” she said.

“You don’t want Pom’s message then. You don’t look interested,” said Victor.

“Oh, I do want it, but of course I am more interested in what my father has to say. What is Pom’s message?”

“He says to tell you that when those shoes are worn out he will send you another pair if he has to rob a Boche to get them.”

“What nonsense! How is the dear little fellow, and why didn’t you bring him with you?”

“I was afraid he wouldn’t want to go back, and I’d hate to have him shot as a deserter. The boys are all devoted to him. My friend Honoré has him in charge while I am on leave.”

“Oh, yes, Honoré. Shall you see his family this time?”

“Happy thought! Why not all of us go out there for another good meal. It will please them to see us and to hear from the lad, and then you would like to make your adieux, wouldn’t you?”

“If I could but tell where we were going. Paulette—”

But Victor interrupted any information by crying out: “Don’t tell her, Paulette. Don’t tell. It is a secret.”

Lucie gave her head, an indignant toss. “I think you are too horrid for words,” she cried. “I shall not stay any longer. I will go to Odette, and you two can keep your old secrets.” She flounced out of the room, leaving Victor and Paulette laughing and whispering together.

However, she could not long keep out of humor with Victor; he was too full of his jokes, in too rollicking a mood to be withstood, but Lucie would not ask him another word about the secret, though she listened to his plans for holiday making. It was only after he had gone that she questioned Paulette. “I think I should see my father’s letter,” she remarked with dignity.

Paulette smiled, lifted her eyebrows and shrugged her shoulders. “But no, my child. I promised Monsieur Victor that I would not show it.”

“Then it must have some very unpleasant word in it.”

“On the contrary.”

“Of course that Victor likes to tease, but I did not think you, Paulette, would be unkind to your Lucie.”

Paulette’s sly look of amusement vanished. “I, unkind? I would not be that, my pigeon. Now, what would you? I promise monsieur that I will not tell because he wishes to give you a pleasant surprise. I can say so much, a very pleasant surprise. He is a good lad. Will you then deprive him of this satisfaction, when he has done so much for us? He is quite excited over this, and would be greatly disappointed if I revealed the secret.”

Lucie sighed. “Very well, then, I will not insist. But can you tell how soon I am to know?”

“Let me see. To-morrow we pack. We also go to this meal at the restaurant. That is enough for the day. I think by the day after we may begin our journey. At the end of the journey you will know.”

“Two days, two whole days. Well, there will be so much going on that I will have no time to sit and think about it, there is that to say. We must say good-by to Miss Lowndes. I wonder, by the way, if she knows?”

“Perhaps. I will ask Monsieur Victor.”

Victor satisfied them on this point when he appeared the next morning. Yes, he had seen Mlle. Lowndes, a charming young lady. He liked blue eyes. He made the last remark with a sly glance at Lucie.

“I suppose that is because you have blue eyes yourself,” she retorted.

“Perhaps. I do not know,” he returned serenely.

“And I suppose you let her into the secret.”

“It was what your father asked that I should do. He did not wish her to concern herself about your affairs any longer than was necessary. He knew that she would go to any amount of pains to relieve your situation, but happily she turned all this over to me, your humble Victor.”

“Humble!” scoffed Lucie, and Victor laughed.

The meal at the Restaurant Honoré, while not quite so great a success as before, was merrier. Odette was of the party and was so excited that she sparkled and bubbled over with fun, matching Victor’s saucy speeches with wittier ones, till Lucie felt herself quite cast in the shade. She was glad that Odette was having so good a time, but she was rather aggrieved that she was not placed more to the fore. She was still brooding over the secret, and more than once was far away in thought while Odette and Victor chatted and made merry. She was not sorry to leave Paris, but this going to the unknown was not in the manner of an ordinary undertaking and she wondered what the new life would be like.

She was so silent on the way home that Victor, too, became grave and asked her very seriously: “What is the matter, Lucie? Are you really so angry with me?”

She shook her head and sighed.

“Then what is it? Are you sorry to be leaving Paris, or have I said something to hurt your feelings? I like blue eyes, of course, but I really like brown ones better.” And then Lucie laughed.

“You foolish boy,” she said, “as if I would care for a silly thing like that. Why should I care what sort of eyes you prefer?”

“But I should much prefer that you liked blue eyes. Do you?”

“I don’t know whether I do or not. It isn’t a matter that I ever think about.”

“No,” returned Victor reflectively, “I don’t suppose you do—yet. I hope we shall have fine weather for our journey to-morrow, don’t you?”

“Our journey? Are you going, too?”

“Of course. I promised your father that I would see you to the very end of it, and take word back to him of how you fared.”

“You didn’t tell me that before.”

“No, but I tell you now. I hope you are going to be comfortable and happy, happier than you have been here.”

“It has not been so bad of late, but I shall not be grieved to go. I am longing for spring in the country. Is it real country to which we are going? You can tell me that much, can’t you?”

“I think one would call it real country.”

“I shall like that better than any town, unless it were our own little town, which after all is more like country than city.”

“I think you will like it. I hope so.”

“Is it far?”

“That depends upon what you call far. It would be quite a walk, not so great a distance to drive, and still less if one went by train.”

“And how do we go?”

“By train. Now I shall not tell you another word or you will worm the whole secret out of me. That Odette is a bright child.”

“She is older than I.”

“But you are still a child, very much of a child.”

“You are not much more yourself.”

“Oh, yes, or I would not be in the army.”

“You tell us very little about it. I heard more when you were talking to Madame and Monsieur Pierre to-day than I have heard at all.”

“One does not want to talk when one is away from the trenches. One likes to forget, although—” He paused and a far-off look came into his eyes, making him look older, and giving Lucie a feeling that he was distant in thought.

“Shall you be glad to get back?” she asked.

“I think so,” he answered slowly. “Yes, yes, of course. One is glad. The others are there and one must get back to them.”

That was all the talk for the moment but it left Lucie with an understanding of the other side of Victor’s character. Later she was to appreciate even more clearly that he was made of finer stuff than she imagined.

Miss Lowndes came in the afternoon, bringing little parting gifts to all. “I am sorry to lose you three dears,” she said, “but I do not despair of meeting you all again. You will write to me, Lucie, and tell me all about everything. I am so interested. Really I shall miss you very, very much. Perhaps I may have a chance to go your way one of these days. We all like to get away to nice, quiet, safe places for a rest when we are utterly worn out. I am coming to see you off to-morrow, and I am glad you have such a reliable escort as that nice Victor Guerin. I hope he will always look me up when he comes to town on leave, and I hope he may be spared,” she added gravely.

That Victor might not be spared the fate of so many, many of the brave poilus had not occurred to Lucie. He was such a live person, that it was impossible to connect him with anything tragic. She gave Miss Lowndes a startled look, and when Victor came that evening all the chill of her attitude of the morning had passed away. This might be the last time. It was a dreadful thought, and she kept near him, hanging on every word, fancying that the memory of them might some day be all that she had left of this friendship.

For the last time she stood at the little window which looked down upon the deserted garden. For the last time she saw the sunset gilding the roofs and steeples of the city. The pigeons would still be strutting down on the pavement below when she was far away. The street noises would be as distinct to-morrow though she would not be hearing them. The thoughts made her pensive yet not sad. Odette came and joined her. Lucie put her arm around the slim waist of this little friend. “Are you sorry that this is the last evening, Odette?” she asked.

“No, no, no,” replied Odette vehemently, “I am glad, thankful. I should not be if I were not going with you and good Paulette. This place is full of horrors, but it has given me you and Paulette so I do not hate it; otherwise I should. My only happy memories of Paris will be those in which you are.”

“Aren’t you glad that Victor is going with us?”

“Yes, I am if you are. He is a brave garçon, but I feel more at home with that big Jean. I am used to those like him. He reminds me of the men who worked in the fields near my village. I could never have offered Nenette and Rintintin to Monsieur Victor, but to Jean, yes, it was quite another thing; it was quite natural.”

“But you chattered away like a babillarde at the restaurant this morning.”

“Very true, but when I am excited I can do that. It is not that one is afraid, but that one does not wish.”

The swallows circled high above the chimneys. The sun-shot clouds turned to gray. The garden became an indistinct mass of grass and foliage, and then the girls turned away.

They started early the next day. Paulette all in a twitter of excitement. Had monsieur the safe-conducts? Where was her green umbrella? They must not forget to give Mathilde the key. What was the time? They must not be late. At last the station was reached. Miss Lowndes came running up at the last moment with chocolate and fruit, and, best of all, with a storybook in English for Lucie. The train moved out. Paris was left behind.

Past towns and quiet villages, past green fields and budding forests, and finally at a small station they left the train. There was a little village beyond, and beyond the village stretched the cultivated ground of farmsteads. Victor looked around and finally hailed an old man with a charrette. “Ah, Jules, you are here. That is good.” He turned to Lucie. “Will you go in the charrette or will you walk?”

“How far is it?”

“About a mile, perhaps less. We can go in the charrette and Jules can come back for the luggage. The horse is rather old, you see, and perhaps it would be best to spare him too heavy a load.”

“I think I should prefer to walk after sitting so long, and then one can see the country better.”

“Very well. And you Paulette, you Odette?”

“We will walk, monsieur,” both replied.

So they started off at a brisk pace, the old man with the ancient horse bringing up the rear. War had not touched this corner of the world set apart from the raging of battles, the stir of camps. All was of a Sabbath quiet, but there were only women and children working in the fields. In the trees where young leaves were putting out, birds were nesting. A lark soared singing overhead. It seemed as if he might at last reach the drift of white clouds piled up in the blue. Presently they came to a little shrine set by the roadside. With one accord all knelt for a moment. There were tears in Lucie’s eyes when she arose. “It has been so long since I saw one of those,” she whispered to Odette.

“Do I not know? Do I not know?” returned Odette in a tremulous voice. “It is like coming home again.”

The little cart with the jogging horse passed them and went on. Victor made a signal to Jules as he passed, which was answered by an understanding nod.

“You seem to know that old man,” remarked Lucie.

“I have seen him once or twice before,” responded Victor.

Paulette gave a little chuckle which quickly changed to a clearing of the throat as Lucie looked at her sharply. “It seems so like my old home of childhood that I laugh,” she explained.

“Are you tired? Would you like to rest a moment?” asked Victor.

“How much farther is it?” asked Lucie.

“We have come about half the distance. At the top of the next hill we shall be able to see the house.”

“Then you know it. You have been here before.”

“Oh, yes, several times. That is why I could conduct you, because I knew the way.”

Lucie stood still and lifted her face to the sky. “How lovely it all is; those floating fleecy clouds, this sweet-smelling air, the birds, the trees. We shall be much happier here; I am sure of it, aren’t you, Paulette?”

“It is what I have desired, to go to the country,” she replied. “Let us get on, my child.”

So they traveled on. At the top of the hill Victor pointed out a low, long white house set in an orchard, and surrounded by smaller buildings. “That is where we go,” Victor told the others.

“I hope they want us,” said Lucie. “It seems strange to be going to people I never saw before, and whom I know nothing at all about. It is very good of them to take us in.”

“They will be glad enough to have helpers in the fields, you may be sure of that.”

“But I shall not be that exactly, shall I?”

“Well, no; you will be a guest, rather more like a guest.”

“But papa pays for me?”

“No doubt.”

Suddenly Lucie stopped short. “Victor! the secret? Where is it? I forgot entirely. You were going to tell me when we came to the end of the journey.”

“But we haven’t quite come to the end. When we reach the house I will tell you if you want to know.”

“There is nothing at all familiar about the place,” said Lucie, stopping again to look around. “I am very sure I never saw it before, and it is not in the direction of our home. I know that is still occupied by the Germans and it doesn’t look as if a German ever saw this part of our dear France.”

Victor made no reply but continued on the way downhill. A little farther on he turned into a lane which led between rows of apple trees. The little cart had already arrived. They could see Jules, pointing, gesticulating. Two or three persons came out of the house. A figure detached itself from the group and came running down the lane.

Victor turned to Lucie with a smile: “There comes the secret,” he said.

“Lucie, Lucie, Lucie!” The call sounded nearer and more excited as the figure approached.

Lucie paused, listened, looked, then she too dashed forward crying: “Annette, Annette!” And in another moment, laughing and crying, the two friends were in each other’s arms.

“Well, how do you like the secret?” asked Victor as he came up. “Was it worth waiting for?”

“It was, it was,” cried Lucie. “I never dreamed it was this. How did it happen? Tell me all about it.”

“First come to the house and see grandmother and grandfather,” said Annette. “They are so impatient to see you, my aunt, too, for you see this is the home of my grandmother’s sister.”

“And my old home,” put in Victor.

“Really, Victor? I never dreamed of all this,” she repeated.

Annette urged her toward the house where stood Monsieur and Madame Le Brun ready to welcome her. The old lady held out trembling hands and drew Lucie close, kissing her on each cheek. “Ah, my little girl,” she said, “we did not dream when we parted that such sad things could happen to our dear France.”

Mons. Le Brun wiped his eyes as he faltered out: “Your grandfather, my old and valued friend, he is no more. It is hard to believe that the good God has taken him, but I thank heaven that you are spared; and your father, he is safe, is he not?”

“So far as we know,” returned Lucie, “but my mother, we do not know where she is.”

“In good time, in good time,” said Mons. Le Brun soothingly. “And here is Madame Guerin, Victor’s grandmother, who is eager to see you.”

Lucie saw a little bright-eyed woman who greeted her affectionately, and who then went forward to speak to Paulette and Odette and bring them into the house.

“It is so wonderful to see you,” said Annette, who could scarcely take her eyes off her newly recovered friend. “When Victor wrote to ask about your coming I could scarcely contain myself with joy, for I felt as if you were lost utterly. Oh, we shall have happy days together in spite of hard times.”

“So it was Victor who thought of it.”

“Did he not tell you? It is like him to put a commendable thing upon some one else. Come here, Victor, and tell Lucie about how you managed this thing.”

So Victor came over from where he was being adored by his grandmother and told his tale. “You see,” he began, “when your father knew that Paris was getting to be unsafe and that Paulette was anxious to get you away, he asked me if I could think of any place where you might be protected and happy and where Paulette could also be. Immediately I thought of this, my own home. I knew my grandmother needed help in the fields and I thought it would be brighter for all if you could join Annette. Moreover, I knew my grandmother would be only too glad to have you come, and that it would be a consolation to your father to know you were among friends. I told him my plan. He urged me to write at once and so there you are; the thing was accomplished.”

“And well accomplished,” said Annette with satisfaction.

“And where did you see my father?” asked Lucie.

Victor looked surprised. “It is easy to see him. Didn’t you know that he and I are in the same brigade?”

“I didn’t know, but I am glad it is so. Where is Odette? I want Annette to meet her. She is such a dear girl, Annette, and we are great friends.”

“The little peasant girl, do you mean?” asked Annette rather superciliously.

“Joan of Arc was a peasant girl,” returned Lucie reproachfully.

“So she was,” agreed Annette.

CHAPTER XIV
LE-COIN-DU-PRES

IT was a large farm, as farms go in that part of the world, and had been in the family of Guerin for many years. The head of the family in former days had occupied the white chateau on the top of the hill, but that had long since passed away from the present branch of whom there were left only Madame Guerin, her grandson Victor, and another grandson, one Gaspard, the son of Madame Guerin’s eldest child. Gaspard, too, was in the army and was with the troops at the Dardanelles. Annette spoke of this cousin as a beau gar. He was still at home when Annette arrived at the farm of Le-Coin-du-Pres.

“Is he as nice as Victor?” asked Lucie as the two girls were sitting together in the twilight.

“He is better looking, I think, and older. He will inherit the farm, of course.”

“And Victor?”

“Oh, Victor will arrive. He is of good stuff, although in danger of being spoiled by his grandmother who thinks the world of him.”

“And which do you like better of these two cousins, Annette?”

Annette put her head to one side, and said quite sedately. “One should not say which of two young men one prefers. It should be left to her parents.”

Lucie’s lips parted in surprise. “Did you think I meant in that sense? I was thinking of them as your cousins only.”

“Not such very, very near cousins; we have not the same grandmother.”

“Oh!” Lucie was rather startled. Who had been putting notions in Annette’s head since she saw her last?

Then Victor came up. “I have been looking for you two,” he said, seating himself on the bench by Annette’s side and tossing a spray of blossoms into Lucie’s lap. “The first of the season,” he announced. “How do you like Coin-du-Pres, Lucie?”

“I think it is lovely. I like this rambling old house and the garden. The garden is nothing as yet, I suppose.”

“In another month you will begin to see its glory. Paulette and Odette, they are content?”

“Paulette doesn’t say much; you know her way, but she remarked to me that at last one could have a place to put things. She has been pottering around the little house, giving Odette all sorts of directions, and planning where they shall put this and what they will have to eat when the time comes, so I really think she is very happy. As for Odette, she is so pleased to be in the country again that nothing else counts. She has been so ordered about and scolded by that old aunt of hers that I suppose Paulette seems like a very angel of disposition, though I should scarcely call her so. It was good of your grandmother to let them have the little house; it will mean home to them.”

“That was Victor’s doing,” Annette spoke up. “He suggested it, and had Jules get it in order; that was one of the things he was particular to write about.”

As if he had not heard, Victor began whistling a gay little tune. Then he remarked: “Four more days and my leave will be up. The next time I shall come here to spend all of my permission; it should be in August, eight days every four months for the men in the trenches.” Alas, who could tell what might happen before then? Certainly if Victor had any misgivings he would not have said so. “To-morrow,” he added, “we must show Lucie all over the farm. Come, let us go in. It is getting damp.”

They went in to where, in the lamp-lighted room, the older people were gathered; Mons. Le Brun poring over the newspapers Victor had brought, Madame his wife knitting, her delicate, little old face outlined against the crimson back of a big chair, and her small nervous hands busy with her work. Madame Guerin sat where she could gather up the papers as her brother-in-law had finished with them. A big, sleepy cat was curled up in her lap—she did not care for dogs—and her bright eyes scanned the columns with sharp eagerness. She was neither so small nor so frail-looking as her sister, and appeared a person of decision and energy.

Annette and Lucie seated themselves upon a sofa. Victor sauntered over to the bookcase, and began examining the volumes.

“Have you nothing to do, Annette?” Madame Guerin inquired presently.

“No, tante, I don’t seem to have,” replied Annette.

“Then you’d better find something. I dislike to see a girl of your age sitting with her hands in her lap.”

“Oh, do let her alone, Clothilde,” Madame Le Brun protested peevishly. “She may do as she pleases this evening when her friend has just come.”

“You spoil her, Marcelline,” declared the elder sister.

“Not more than you do Victor.”

Madame Guerin bridled. “Not more than I do? You can say that when you know that Victor is here on his permission, that he suffers in the trenches and that nothing should be denied him? What would you? Is a soldier fighting for his country to be treated like an idle girl?”

“Here, here, stop your quarreling, you two old children,” spoke up Victor. “I will spend my permission in Paris the next time, if you begin to wrangle about me. Grandmother, may I have this?” He held up a small book.

“What is it?” She turned her head, at the same time pulling the cat farther upon her lap from which he seemed in danger of slipping.

“It is selections from the discourses of Epictetus. It belonged to my father.”

“It is not one of those objectionable books unfit for a young man to read, and not to be mentioned before young ladies?”

Victor laughed and opened the book at random. “Listen to this and then you can judge if it be improper. ‘What matters to me anything that happens while I have greatness of soul?’” He turned over a few pages and again read: “Shall not the fact that God is our Maker, and Father, and Guardian free us from griefs and terrors?”

“You may keep the book, my child,” agreed the grandmother, little knowing under what circumstances she would see it again.

Victor slipped it into his pocket and went over to where the two girls were whispering together. He sat down by them and they played some foolish games, smothering frequent bursts of laughter, till bedtime came. Then Lucie was taken up to a little clean bedroom, very tiny, but quite comfortable and fragrant with the sweet spring odors. Annette was no farther off than the next room, but Paulette was separated from her by sweeps of grass, garden paths and rows of apple trees. The girl felt a little lonely, in spite of Annette. She wondered if she would be able to avoid Madame Guerin’s angles and Madame Le Brun’s exactions. Of Mons. Le Brun she had no fear. He was her grandfather’s friend and in her last waking thoughts the dear grandfather had place.

Before the end of the week Victor departed, and Lucie missed him. Always he was able to smooth out the wrinkles, she told herself as she sighed. Paulette and Odette were working in the fields and she saw not much of them. They were tired at night and were at their labors before she was up in the morning. Madame Le Brun, while insisting that Annette should not be idle, was more lenient to Lucie, over whom she considered that she had no rights beyond seeing that she was comfortable. So Lucie cast about for something to do, and finally consulted Mons. Le Brun.

“What should you like to do?” he asked.

“I think it would please my parents if I were to study, but it is hard to do that alone.”

Mons. Le Brun tapped the ends of his fingers together as he considered the question. After a while he said: “How should you like that I teach you Latin?”

“And I could teach you English?”

Mons. Le Brun laughed. “Very well, but I do not promise that I am a very brilliant pupil.”

“Annette already knows a little that I have taught her,” Lucie told him. “I think it would be well for her to join us, then she could study Latin with me and English with you.”

Again the old man laughed. “Poor Annette will then be doing double work, but never mind, it need not be too hard for her. If I get into difficulties as teacher I will go to the good curé who will help me out.”

So the little class was begun. Madame Le Brun and Madame Guerin nearly had a pitched battle over it. One objected to the studies taking place in the morning, for it was then that Annette should be learning to sew, to preserve, to do various household tasks. The other objected to the afternoon because it interfered with the hour when her husband read aloud to her, but finally the morning had it, because it was the man who preferred that time of day. Therefore almost every morning after this would be seen three heads bending over books and papers, the blossoming apple trees a background for Annette’s dark locks, Monsieur’s gray ones and Lucie’s sunny brown ones. They were never arduous tasks and judging from the frequent laughter they were often amusing.

News from the outside world reached them but slowly. The battle of Ypres was going on. The Germans failed to pierce the British lines, but Madame Guerin sighed and shook her head at every fresh sacrifice of troops. The shocking news of the Lusitania tragedy sobered every one. The German successes gave a harder, more determined expression to every face.

It was one glorious day in May that the bolt struck nearer home. The morning lessons were over. Lucie was lingering under the tree where the chairs and table were set, when she saw Odette running up from Paulette’s little house. She arrived breathless, agitated. “Lucie,” she cried panting, “where is madame?”

“In the house, I think. She came in from the garden some time ago.”

“There is some one to see her. And, Lucie, go, go yourself to Paulette; she wants you; she needs you.”

In alarm Lucie ran down the lane, leaving Odette to find Madame Guerin. The door of Paulette’s little house stood open. Lucie did not stop to knock but entered at once. She saw a man with Paulette; both were bending over something which lay on a chair. “What is it?” exclaimed Lucie in alarm. The man turned around, showing a haggard face. “Jean!” cried the girl.

He stepped back to allow her to come up to the chair from which suddenly came a faintly pitiful attempt at a bark. Lucie flung herself on her knees. “Pom Pom,” she whispered, “dear little Pom Pom. Oh, what is this that has happened? Give him to me! Give him to me, Paulette. He will like being in my lap.”

Paulette gently lifted the little creature from the chair. “He appears to understand,” she said, as Pom Pom feebly tried to lick Lucie’s hand.

As Paulette uncovered him, Lucie perceived that two of his legs were bound up, and that he could not move without pain. The tears flowed down her cheeks. “Poor, dear one,” she crooned, gently stroking the soft little head. Pom Pom’s eyes showed that he understood and again he sought to lick her hand.

Then Madame Guerin came hurrying in. “What is all this?” she asked. “A sick dog? I don’t know a thing about dogs. If it were a cat I might know what to do.” Then something in Jean’s face made her stop short. “Who is this?” she asked, “and why does he bring the dog here?”

“I am sorry, madame,” began Jean in his slow way, “but I am the bearer of ill news.” He stopped and looked helplessly at his mother.

“Who are you and whose dog is that?” asked madame sharply.

“It is my son Jean,” said Paulette gravely. “The dog is Monsieur Victor’s, and Jean has brought him to us whom he knows and loves.”

Madame clenched her hands till they showed the strain. “Victor?” she whispered. “He is not—not—killed?” Her voice rose shrilly.

Lucie, too, made a sudden movement, causing Pom Pom to utter a faint moan. She gently touched his head and sat very still.

“He is not killed, no, madame, but he is very seriously wounded,” Jean replied.

Madame recovered her poise. “Sit down, if you please, and tell me all. You look tired. Paulette, have you seen that he has food and drink?” She drew up a chair and motioned Jean to a seat. “If you are not too tired will you please tell me,” she went on.

“It was at Arras,” Jean began, “the battle there, you understand. Monsieur was wounded. Night came. No one knew that he lay there. There were so many, you see, and these others were plainly alive. The little dog knew, oh, yes, he knew that Monsieur Victor was not dead, and he went out to find him. It was night. No one saw him go. He returned. Oh, yes, he returned wounded. The little dog, you understand, was wounded. It was as he was coming back to tell us. He managed to arrive. Figure to yourself, madame, the courage. It was Monsieur Honoré, his friend, that he made understand. We went out. We searched, and we found him there so sorely wounded, that he could not move. Monsieur Victor it was, and we brought him back. He is at a hospital.”

“Yes, yes,” whispered madame. “Will he—do they think he will live?”

Jean shook his head doubtfully. “One cannot tell. He was far spent when I saw him.”

“You saw him then, afterward? After his wounds had been dressed.”

“Yes, madame.”

“He could speak? He spoke to you?”

“He sent for me. It was about the little dog. He understood that it was the little dog. He was very weak, but he could tell me his wish that I would bring the little dog to Mademoiselle Lucie. He told his colonel—I think it was his colonel, and he said I should go. Monsieur le Capitaine, mademoiselle’s father, was there also. They said I should come, and I came. I was afraid the little dog would die before I arrived.”

The tears were falling from Lucie’s eyes upon the head of the dog in her lap. “Poor Pom Pom. Dear Pom Pom,” she repeated over and over.

Madame Guerin came and knelt by Lucie. “And I said I did not care for dogs,” she murmured. “If we can but save the life of this one, never will dog have a better home, more care.”

Lucie looked up fiercely. “But, madame, you do not understand. He is mine. Pom Pom is mine. It is I who will care for him. It is because Victor had given him to me that he sends him back. Next to Victor—Oh, yes, he loved him best; I do not deny that, but next to him he loves me.”

Madame arose without another word. She stood for a moment looking down at Lucie and the suffering dog, now lying very quietly. Then she turned to Jean. “When do you return?” she asked.

“To-morrow, madame.”

“I will go with you,” she said, and left the room.

When she reached the house Mons. Le Brun came out to meet her. “This is sad news, Clothilde,” he said. “A message has just come.”

“I have had the message from another source,” she said. “I go to him to-morrow.”

For hours Lucie sat there. Jean and his mother talked in low voices outside. Annette came and begged to take Lucie’s place, but she only shook her head. “He would rather stay with me,” she said. “He knows me best.”

Odette stole in and out, stopping to ask if she could bring water, milk, food. She crouched close to Lucie and they talked of the day they first met. “It was then I was trying to make a poilu of Pom Pom, do you remember?” Lucie asked. “He became a true poilu, the brave little man.” She bent her head and softly kissed him above the eyes.

“He was so funny when he tried to sing,” Odette remarked reminiscently. “He has done many things for a little dog. One would not think he could be so human. Put him in my lap, Lucie. You must be so tired. Perhaps he will not mind.”

“But he seems fairly comfortable now. I am afraid if I stir he will suffer again. I will keep him so for a while yet.”

After a while Paulette came in. “This will not do, my child,” she began; “you will wear yourself out. The poor little one will be quite as comfortable on a bed I shall make for him.”

“No, no, I would rather stay. What is this compared to his sufferings, compared to what our brave men suffer? I can stand it. When I can no longer I will give him up.”

The story had gone around of the dog’s devotion to his master and those working on the place flocked to see him, but Paulette would not have one of them inside. “He would be better off if they put him out of his misery,” muttered old Jules.

“What’s that you are saying?” questioned Paulette. “What do you know about it? The creature may get well.”

Jules shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Then Marie came whispering, then young Michel, very much interested, as what boy would not be? It was Michel who offered to go for the doctor. “He will come, even if he is not a beast doctor,” he declared. “Oh yes, he will come when I tell him.”

Paulette looked at Jean. Should she allow this?

“Let him come,” advised Jean. “He may not be able to do much good, but he can perhaps give something that will cause sleep.”

So off Michel went to the village and came back with the old doctor who very tenderly examined Pom Pom, and then shook his head. “He cannot recover,” was his opinion. He looked sharply at Lucie. “My child,” he inquired, “how long have you been sitting there?”

“I don’t know,” returned Lucie, “but I do not want to move while Pom Pom needs me.”

Without further words the doctor lifted the little dog and laid him on the bed Paulette had prepared for him. “He will be better off there,” declared the doctor, “and you can sit by him. Brave little dog, I will not let you suffer.” Pom Pom moaned a little as the doctor gave the quieting drug, but was soon quiet again.

Lucie rose, feeling stiff from so long sitting in a cramped position. The doctor stood looking thoughtfully at the little dog, now very quiet. Paulette followed the doctor to the door to which he beckoned her. “There is about one chance in a hundred,” he told her. “I think there is a bit of shrapnel for which I should have to probe; otherwise blood poison will set in, if it has not done so already, and the little chap will be done for. The little girl will be worn out. Hers is a beautiful devotion only surpassed by that of the dog. If she will consent to allowing me to take the dog home with me where I have the necessary appliances, I will do my very best for him. Explain to her that it is the only chance, and that I hardly think he can be saved, but in my opinion it is worth while to try.”

Paulette returned to the room and reported what the doctor had said. “I cannot bear to let him go when I may never see him again,” Lucie spoke distressedly.

“But, my child, it must be very soon that you do part from him unless the doctor makes this effort.”

“I know, I know,” acknowledged Lucie.

“It is very kind of this good doctor. It is extraordinary that he should be willing to do this for a dumb beast,” Paulette argued.

“It will hurt him dreadfully, won’t it?” said Lucie, lifting tearful eyes to the doctor who now came back into the room.

“I shall put him under ether, and he should not suffer so much as he has been doing.”

“Shall you have to keep him long?”

“If he improves I think he can return in a week, perhaps.”

“If he does not improve?”

“One cannot tell. Be assured that I shall not permit him to suffer needlessly, and that I shall do my utmost for him, as I would for any other soldier of France.”

Lucie looked up gratefully. “You are very good, and I trust you. I believe that you can cure him, so please take him.”

“Do not expect the impossible, my child, but what can be done shall be. It is a small service to give a hero such as he is.”

Lucie bent over to take a last look at Pom Pom. He lay very quiet. She went to the door and called Michel who was waiting to hear what the doctor might say: “Michel,” she said, “please go to the house and ask Mlle. Annette to give you the little flag which is pinned up in my room.”

Michel sped away, and returned in a twinkling with the flag. He followed her into the house and watched while she spread the colors of France over the little dog.

“It is the last thing I can do, and I think Victor would like it,” she told the doctor. “If he dies will you please let him be buried with it?”

The doctor nodded and turned away biting his lip. He was used to pathetic scenes but this was out of the ordinary. Paulette brought a basket and they lifted Pom Pom and his bed into it. Jean carried it out to the doctor’s gig. As the doctor drove off Jean stood at salute and Michel, not to be outdone, followed his example. The daylight was fading. The rosy flush of apple blossoms became brighter because of the rose of sunset sky. As the doctor drove out of sight Lucie gave a quick sob and buried her face on Paulette’s shoulder. “Is there never to be anything but unhappiness in the world?” she sobbed.

Paulette drew her gently into the house, motioning to the others to keep away.

Michel turned to Odette. “I think it was fine to cover him with the flag,” he said. “He is as great a hero as any.”

“It was also a beautiful thought of Mademoiselle Lucie’s,” said Jean. “I shall tell the copains.”

Odette nodded. She could not trust herself to speak. Michel slipped away to his home, and the brooding, sweet-scented May night settled down upon the quiet farm.

In the house they were talking in subdued tones. Madame Guerin was making her plans for leaving with Jean. She sat by the table, when Lucie came in, looking very pale and worn. She had shed her tears, and now there was only a dull ache in her heart.

Madame looked up as she entered. “You are utterly worn out, you poor little one. She must have some orange-flower water, Paulette. I think you did not hear about the little book, Lucie, that little book which Victor asked for the last time he was here. Jean has brought it to me. It is very precious, for it saved Victor’s life. See where the hole is.”

Lucie took the little blood-stained book. It had a stout leather binding, now torn and defaced. It brought the horror of battlefields very near. She laid down the book with a shiver, then went over to the sofa. It could not be that Victor, always so gay and joyous, should be perhaps dying. How well she remembered his reading from that same war-torn volume: “Shall not the fact that God is our Maker, and Father, and Guardian free us from griefs and terrors?” No, she would not believe that he would not get well. She had never believed that she would not see her mother again and she would have the utmost faith that, too, she would see Victor and Pom Pom.

Paulette came in with the orange-flower water. She drank it obediently. Annette, her eyes red with crying, came to her. “Grandmother has gone to bed with a nervous headache,” she told her aunt. “She is all upset because of all that has happened, but most, I think, because of your going away.”

“That is Marcelline all over,” returned Madame. “I should think if any one were to be upset it should be I.”

“I suppose you have no idea of how long you will be away?” remarked Annette.

“Of course not. How can I tell? I wish you would not bring up such subjects, Annette.” Then Annette understood the dread which possessed her aunt, and the effort she was making to be calm and brave.

Annette drew closer to Lucie. “Dear Lucie, dear Lucie,” she murmured, “you are all tired out. Come, let us go to bed. Grandfather is upstairs, and grandmother went long ago.”

So they went upstairs together, leaving Madame Guerin alone with her fears and the little stained book.

CHAPTER XV
GASPARD

IT was after Madame Guerin and Jean had gone that Gaspard arrived. A tall, bronzed young man he was, graver than Victor, very gentle, very quiet. Lucie found him polite, but it was very evident that he preferred Annette to her. The two spent much time together and Lucie felt rather lonely. Without Madame Guerin’s brisk presence the house appeared very still. Upon leaving, madame had asked Paulette to have an eye to matters domestic, not trusting entirely to the judgment of the two young maids.

The first report of Victor informed them that he was hanging between life and death, barely holding his own, yet this much was more than had been anticipated and every one was more hopeful. Pom Pom, too, had come through his ordeal satisfactorily, and while the doctor could not, yet, give much encouragement he did not discourage.

For some reason Odette placed the two in the same balance. “If one recovers the other will,” she declared to Lucie.

“Why do you say that?” Lucie asked. “How do you know, Odette?”

“I do not know it; I only feel it. Something tells me so.”

“I wish the something would tell you that they are sure to get well,” responded Lucie.

Since coming to the country and spending so much time out-of-doors Odette had grown taller and stronger. She was naturally pale but plentiful food had given her a healthier look, and the haunting look of despair was gradually leaving her eyes. She was industrious to the last degree, and was popular with those working both indoors and out. Paulette was devoted to her, and once had said to Lucie: “She is such a child as I should wish my little Rose Marie to have been if she had lived, my Rose Marie who died when she was but three years old.” And Lucie considered that the greatest compliment that Odette could have received. The little peasant, however, showed her pride by never seeking Lucie, but was always delighted if Lucie sought her, as she did on those days when Gaspard seemed to monopolize Annette. The latter now was seldom ready to study in the morning. She would sit with her sewing in the living-room, Madame Le Brun a watchful chaperon, while Gaspard told of his experiences in the war.

Sometimes Lucie would listen for a while, but there was never as much laughter as during the hour when Lucie stumbling over her Latin nouns and Mons. Le Brun struggling with the English pronunciation, made merry. Monsieur always considered it a great joke to call Lucie “Mees,” and to act the part of a little boy, so if neither one made much progress at least they heartened one another and made this morning hour a pleasant one.

It was one day when talking to Odette that Lucie made a discovery. Michel had just brought the daily report from the good old doctor. The boy never failed to do this errand which he voluntarily took upon himself. Pom Pom was better, a mere trifle better. It might not be permanent. Another day would show, perhaps.

“That is good to hear,” cried Lucie, her face beaming, as Odette gave her the news just learned from Michel. “Now we shall see, Odette, if you are a true prophetess, when the next news comes from Victor. If he is also better I shall think that something which tells you things has spoken the truth. I wish you did not work in the fields till so late, Odette.”

“But it is right that I should.”

“I suppose so, but it leaves me without a companion much of the time. When Gaspard goes I suppose I shall see something of Annette again. Of course it is her duty to entertain him, for Madame Le Brun cannot take responsibilities, and in Madame Guerin’s absence Annette is really the chatelaine.”

“There is Mons. Le Brun.”

“Yes, to be sure, but those two cannot spend all the time together. I think Gaspard really prefers the others, when it comes to that. It seems rather peculiar, too.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Annette is a dear girl, and I like to be with her myself because I, too, am a girl, but Gaspard is a grown-up man. He is three years older than Victor.”

“And you think grown-up men do not care for the society of young ladies? I never heard that before.” There was a little mocking look in Odette’s eyes.

“Young ladies, yes, but Annette is not a young lady.”

“I think you told me she is sixteen.”

“You are sixteen but you are not a young lady.”

“In two years she will be a young lady; she will be of marriageable age. She is not too young to be fiancée.”

Lucie looked at Odette, for a moment taken aback. “Do you really think they are fianced? I never in the world thought of that. I mean to ask her. No, on second thoughts I would rather ask Mons. Le Brun. I can be more confidential with him these days than with Annette. I think if it is so that she should have told me, old friends as we are.”

“It may not be arranged; it may be only going to be.”

Lucie drew a long sigh. “When my friends begin to grow up like this I feel very queer and out of place. It makes me want my mother.”

“It does make one feel that way,” returned Odette.

“How do you know?”

“I don’t know; I only judge so.”

“One of those times when something tells you,” said Lucie, laughing. “Well, Odette, don’t you grow up and leave me.”

“I shall always wish to be near you whether I am grown up or not,” returned Odette diplomatically.

“Well, I am going to hunt up Grandfather Le Brun. I know I can get him to tell me anything. Au revoir, Odette.”

“You will tell me what you learn?”

“If I may,” Lucie answered back and then ran on to the house, to find Mons. Le Brun smoking under the trees.

“Vell, Mees,” he greeted her, “’ow do you do?”

“Very well, sir.”

“Ver-r-ee vell, seer,” he tried to repeat.

“Very well, not ‘very vell,’ and you don’t say ‘seer,’ you say ‘sir.’”

“‘Bien.’ I say ‘Ver-ree ou-ell, sur.’ Correct, no?”

“Much better, very much better. Monsieur, I want you to tell me something. How do people act when they are in love?”

“Mon Dieu! She wishes to conjugate the verb amo. It is so long, mademoiselle, since I played the young lover I should scarcely know. I love; you love; he loves; that is how it goes. But why do you ask? Are you perhaps falling in love, with the doctor is it? There is no one else but Gaspard, and Gaspard—”

“Exactly; it is Gaspard whom I mean.”

“But, my child—” The old man became so agitated that he dropped his stick, which Lucie hastened to pick up. “Gaspard—your parents; you are so young, moreover Gaspard—” He paused helplessly.

Lucie burst into a peal of laughter. “You didn’t suppose I was talking about Gaspard and myself?” She laughed again.

He shrugged his shoulders. “They are impossible, these females. One cannot tell what they mean. You ask me about love. You mention Gaspard. What am I to think?”

“Dear monsieur, forgive me. It is all my fault. Come let us sit down under our own tree of the morning study and I will explain. I perceive that this Gaspard prefers Annette’s society to yours or mine, and I begin to wonder. I forget that Annette will so soon be grown up; when I do realize I see that it is quite possible that they should be fianced, but Annette who has always confided in me suddenly tells me nothing, so I come to you.”

“You admit it would be a very good arrangement. Annette will have a respectable dot; Gaspard will inherit this place. We are old, my wife and I. We wish to see Annette well settled. I tell you this in confidence, because of my old friendship for your grandfather and of your friendship for Annette. Nothing can be positively settled until Madame Guerin returns, but then—we know her wishes upon this subject and so you may guess how it will turn out.”

Lucie lost no time in telling Odette what she had found out. “You are the wisest creature, Odette,” she said. “I should never in the world have thought of this by myself. I don’t see how you know so much. I am with Annette much more than you and yet I didn’t suspect.”

Odette smiled a little demure smile. She was much more sedate in these days than she had been in the city. Probably she worked off her surplus energy in the fields. “One sees some things, hears some things, guesses the rest,” she replied.

“Well, your eyes must be sharper than mine. I confess I go about dreaming sometimes, and that I suppose you do not. I look about at things, you at people.”

“And things too.”

That night as Lucie was making ready for bed she heard Annette stirring in the next room. The night was calm and bright. The nightingales were singing their hearts out. All sorts of sweet odors were borne in through the windows; the scent of lilac blooms, of apple blossoms, of young green leaves, of newly worked earth. Lucie tapped at Annette’s door and at the invitation to enter she went in. Annette, in her dressing gown, was kneeling by the open window. Lucie knelt beside her. Neither girl spoke for a time, then Lucie murmured: “How unspeakably peaceful and lovely. Does it seem possible that not so many miles away there are terrible things going on?”

“That is what troubles one,” returned Annette. “In a few days there will be another for us to be anxious about.”

“You mean Gaspard? I know. Your grandfather told me. Do you then care so much for him, Annette?”

“He is my cousin.”

“Of course; I know that, but do you like thinking of him as your fiancé?”

“Oh, yes, much better than of one I did not know. He is good and kind.”

“But are you really in love with him?”

“Of course I shall be when he is my husband. It would be quite out of place to say so now.”

“Then I know you are not. I shall never, never consent to marry any one that I do not truly love. My mother chose my father and he chose her. They were madly in love.”

“That happens, of course it happens, but quite the same one’s family make the selection first.”

“It did not happen so in the case of my parents. My mother was traveling in France. She met my father at the house of a friend, and at once they wished to meet again, and so they did, many times. Then my father went over to America and asked her parents, and they were married.”

“That is not the way of my parents. It was all arranged before they met at all. I think I am very fortunate that it is Gaspard who is selected for me by my grandparents. I like him and he likes me.”

To Lucie’s mind this was a very mild way of putting it. Her imagination rioted in more romantic paths.

“Figure to yourself,” Annette went on, “how it would be if your parents were to come to you and say: ‘We have chosen a fiancé for you, an estimable young man’; suppose we say it is Victor; I mention him because he is one you know very well; would you be so foolish as to declare that you would not marry him just because you were not wildly in love with him, a young man of good character, similar tastes, in your own station in life and good prospects? No, no, Lucie, it is because you are so young and inexperienced that you think so. You will change your mind when you are older.”

“When I am as old as my very experienced and mature friend Annette,” returned Lucie, laughing. “Well, Annette, if you are satisfied that is all I am concerned with. I was afraid maybe you were not and that made me unhappy. I do hope Gaspard is good enough for you.”

Annette turned around in surprise. “Good enough? Of course he is,” she exclaimed. “But, Lucie, do not take everything for granted; there can be no actual betrothal until Aunt Clothilde returns. She is coming soon, we hope, and then Gaspard’s leave expires, and he goes back.”

The thought which was in Lucie’s heart she did not express. Suppose Gaspard should fall in the war, what then? She gave Annette a good-night kiss and went back to her room.

A few days later Madame Guerin returned. Jules went to meet her in the old cabriolet, but it was not Jules who came back with her in it. He walked instead. Lucie, Annette and Gaspard walked down between the rows of apple trees to meet the returned madame. “But that is not Jules with her,” said Annette suddenly.

Lucie turned her eyes from the drifting blossoms, gave one quick exclamation and darted forward, all her heart in her cry of: “Papa! Papa!”

The gig stopped. Lucie clambered in to cover her father’s face with kisses, and to murmur little ecstatic words of endearment. Then she climbed out again, running alongside till the old vehicle reached the house. In her joy of the moment she even forgot to ask about Victor, and it was not till Gaspard made the inquiry that she learned how he was.

“He is slowly improving,” madame told them. “They do not know yet how much he may be disfigured or whether he will ever regain the use of his right arm. It is a long slow road he must go, if indeed he recovers, yet there is hope and that is more than at first was given. That I should live to see him lying there like that! I could do no good, they told me. It is all a matter of time and of skilled attention from the doctors. If there is any complication, any change for the worse, they will notify me.”

“But papa was as badly wounded, weren’t you, papa?” Lucie spoke up. “And you see he is quite well again. I know Victor will be, too.”

“It is cheering to have you say so,” responded madame, nodding to her, and continuing her way toward the house, the others following with her various bags and bundles, Lucie hanging on her father’s arm and bringing up the rear.

Mons. Le Brun came to the door and looked out to see what was causing all the talk and excitement. He stopped short, looked puzzled, then hurried forward with both hands outstretched. “Marcel, my dear Marcel,” he cried. “This is a surprise and a great joy.” Then he embraced him, kissed him on each cheek, and began talking and questioning at such a rate that Lucie had no chance at all.

She took this opportunity to run around to tell Paulette and Odette the news, creating quite the sensation she desired. “Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Paulette. “It is your father, Mons. Marcel? How is this? Does he look well? Does he remain long?”

“Come and see for yourself,” Lucie urged. They started out toward the front of the house but met Mons. Du Bois halfway, for he had missed Lucie and had come in search of her.

“Running away so soon from your father, my daughter?” he said.

“Oh, no, papa, but Mons. Le Brun was so busy talking, so I came to bring Paulette.”

“Our good friend Paulette, our good friend.” Mons Du. Bois took both her brown, work-hardened hands and held them for a moment. “How can I thank you, Paulette, for all you have done for this dear daughter?”

“I, monsieur? It is nothing I have done, nothing to speak of. I would be criminal to have done less, and what has she not been to me? I could not have borne it all if it had not been for her.”

“Odette, too. You must see Odette, papa, my friend of whom I have written you,” Lucie chimed in.

So Odette was brought out to be made known to her Lucie’s father, and to greet him somewhat shyly, but with a little dignity of her own. Then Lucie bore her father off for a long, long talk.

For some moments they sat looking in each other’s faces for the changes the year had wrought. The happy, childlike look had gone from Lucie’s eyes. There was a more wistful expression around her mouth, and her face in repose looked very sad. She was not the merry child of the last year’s spring. In her father’s eyes was that far-seeing, rapt expression she had once noticed in Victor’s. It was as if he had seen visions, unearthly things. He looked older, sterner. There were hard, set lines around his mouth.

The change in him gave Lucie a strange, contracted feeling about her throat. She wound her arms around his neck and clung to him very closely while he held her tight. “It seemed as if I should never, never see you again,” she murmured. “It has been a whole year, a whole year, papa, since those happy days in our own home. You have heard nothing more?”

“Nothing.”

“But you think she is alive, that we shall see her again?”

“I could not endure it if I believed otherwise.”

“They do send them back sometimes, don’t they? those who have been taken into Germany.”

“Sometimes, yes, when they are no longer of use.” He spoke in a bitter tone. Lucie sighed and hid her face again on her father’s breast to hide the gathering tears.

“I tried to be brave, papa,” she said brokenly. “I still try, but sometimes it is very hard.”

“Do I not know that, dear daughter?”

“But soldiers are always brave.”

“They try to be; they always are outwardly, but there are times when the spirit faints.”

“I am glad you tell me that, for there are days when my spirit goes down, down into the very depths, yet I am much better off than so many many others, than Odette, for instance. She has lost both her parents. You think there is no doubt she is in Germany?” She went back to the subject of her mother, of whom she rarely spoke to any one.

“It is possible that she is in some one of the captured towns.”

“Would that be better?”

“It might be; it might not. It all depends upon the officers in charge. I think it is more probable that she is in Germany, for we believe that her message came through some escaped prisoner who did not come my way and so posted the message.”

“It was a great comfort.”

“The greatest in the world.”

Then they fell to talking of other things, of the dear grandfather, of Victor, of Pom Pom, till Michel came by where they were sitting, on his way from the doctor’s. He waved his cap when he saw Lucie. “He is better, mademoiselle, and unless he takes a bad turn the doctor thinks there is a good chance for him.”

“Thank you, Michel, that is good news you bring to-day,” Lucie answered cheerily. “Such a good doctor, so kind, so devoted. His only son has gone to the service and he has taken up the practice again. He had retired, you see, for he is quite an old man. The people adore him, for he is just as attentive to the poorest as to the richest. He came all the way out here to see Pom Pom, and is watching and nursing him as if he were his dearest friend.”

“There is much goodness in the world,” her father returned thoughtfully, “but sometimes it takes great afflictions to make one realize it. You are contented here, little one?”

“As much as I could be while things are as they are, and much more so than in Paris. Of course I long for the day to come when we can go back to our own home. Paulette is always talking about it. Will the war last so very much longer? Can we go as soon as the Germans have left our town?”

“I am afraid those are questions it would take a wiser one than I to answer.”

“But you would like me to stay here till it is safe to go back, and you will come when you can to see me? It is farther away than Paris, you know.”

“It does not appear that there is a better place for you, here among friends, and I feel satisfied while you have Paulette, she is such a good devoted soul.”

“She is all that, and Odette, too. Then I am satisfied if you are.”

Many other long talks did the two have during Mons. Du Bois’s period of leave, and more than one thing was settled during his stay, among them the affair between Gaspard and Annette. The two soldiers went off together and life settled back into its former routine at Coin-du-Pres.

CHAPTER XVI
UPS AND DOWNS

THE days lengthened to weeks, the weeks to months, but still the war continued, while life went on uninterruptedly at Coin-du-Pres. During the time that Victor was slowly creeping back to life and strength at a distant hospital, Pom Pom in the hands of his friends won out in his race for health. Long before Victor was able to be on his feet the little dog was running about quite as if he had never heard of shrapnel or big guns. To be sure he was a trifle stiff and favored one hind leg when he ran, but he had full use of three others and was as good as ever, Lucie declared. If ever a dog was petted and pampered it was he, though it was always Lucie whom he followed, Lucie whom he wished to guard.

The good doctor dropped in frequently for a friendly call, a chat with the girls about Pom Pom, a talk with Mons. Le Brun about the war. Lucie often listened to the discussions, learning of the sinking of the Lusitania, of the second battle of Ypres, of how the French in the Champagne failed to pierce the German lines, of Italy as a possible ally, of the fighting in Russia, in Turkey. The reports of the ups and downs made the excitement of the days and were discussed by every one from Michel up. The year 1915 went out with no great encouragement to the hopes of the Allies; 1916 came in with little promise of sudden success, but it found the same grim determination in the heart of every soldier fighting for the Allied cause.

From time to time Lucie saw her father, who could tell them of the battle of Verdun, assuring them that though the Germans had taken Fort Douaumont it was through heavy losses, and not large results. This was in February. In July began the battle of the Somme. It was while it was in progress that ill news came to Paulette. Jean Ribot was reported missing.

It was only in the first few moments that Paulette collapsed. Old Jules brought the news. There had never been very good feeling between him and Paulette; the latter’s sarcasms were too cutting, but there was only neighborly sympathy on Jules’ face when he found Paulette out in the field with Odette and the other workers. The good woman looked dazed for a moment, then she sank down upon a heap of newly cut hay and covered her face with her hands. The others stood around in respectful silence, though shaking their heads at one another and whispering little prayers.

It was Odette who broke the silence. She stood, slender and firm, with uplifted head. “If it be true, he has given his best for France,” she said, “but I do not believe it is true.”

Paulette rose to her feet, wiped her eyes and grasped Odette by the wrist. “Why, why, do you say that?” she asked in a tense voice.

“That one is missing does not mean that one is dead,” replied Odette. “He may be a prisoner.”

“Better he were dead,” mourned Paulette, covering her head with her apron.

“And,” Odette went on, “there is a possibility that he is neither. He may have lost himself from his companions, and be wandering in the woods trying to find his way back. For me I shall not believe anything very bad has happened till we know the truth.” And she began again raking the hay.

Paulette stood still, pondering on Odette’s words. “That is well said,” she spoke at last. “There is enough disaster of which one has the proof, why should one be desolated until that proof comes?” Then she too turned back to her work and all the rest followed her example. In the week that followed Paulette was perfectly calm and confident. If there were moments when her heart misgave her, no one knew it but Odette, to whom she would turn a troubled face to receive in response a reassuring smile which, some way or another, was all that was required to restore Paulette’s equanimity.

Even Lucie had come to put confidence in Odette’s “something tells me.” Had she not maintained that if Pom Pom recovered it would be a sign that Victor, likewise, would do so? There was something almost uncanny in Odette’s attitudes of mind. Probably it was nothing more than she cultivated a cheerful optimism, and, having suffered so much, made a practice of pushing away all unnecessary and gloomy forebodings simply because she had come to a place where she could endure no more. She had always assured Lucie that she was positive her mother would return, and upon this Lucie pinned her faith, discouraged and disheartened as she was when months passed without any word.

It was about two weeks after Jules brought the report that Jean was missing that Odette’s proof came in a very material and satisfactory form, for who should walk in one evening but Jean himself. Paulette who had been so brave under ill news was now completely overcome. She threw herself into Jean’s arms and wept on his shoulder as if her tears would never cease.

Jean held her awkwardly and looked over at Odette standing with a vivid light in her eyes and a mysterious smile upon her lips. “But, mamon,” protested Jean, “what is this? Why this hysterical manner? Has anything happened?”

“Anything? Ciel! he calls it anything, nothing to have been reported missing. He thinks me an insensate who did not mourn over him as one lost, dead, prisoner.”

“But I was never any of those things,” declared Jean. “I was in the fight, yes, but luckily I have not even a scratch. I was gassed a little, yes, and I have this permission to make up for it.”

But even this assurance did not stop the flow of Paulette’s tears, and she still clung to him while he patted her encouragingly, his eyes on Odette.

“It has been a long time that she has kept back her tears,” explained Odette. “When she believed the worst she was brave, oh very full of courage. Now, you see, it is the relief which brings the tears.”

Paulette wiped her eyes and allowed herself to be led to a chair. “It was all because of that child,” she said. “I accepted the report and believed I had lost you. Did she? Not at all. ‘It is not true,’ she said. ‘I shall not believe it till we have the proof.’ It is she who has kept me in heart, for not once would she believe it.”

“Why did you of all others refuse to believe it?” asked Jean, looking at Odette.

“I do not know,” the girl returned. “Why should one believe an unhappy thing till one is obliged to?”

Jean nodded thoughtfully. “It is good philosophy,” he returned. “Why I was reported missing I do not know, but yes, I think I do, for there is a Jean Ribaud who was taken prisoner. The names sound the same, you see.”

“I am sorry for that other poor Jean,” said Odette.

“As you would have been sorry for me? Probably he had no Nenette and Rintintin to protect him.”

A flashing smile lighted up Odette’s face as she picked up a bucket to go for water.

Jean looked at his mother who had now quite recovered her calm, and who rose, upon hospitality intent, and went into the little kitchen. Then Jean’s eyes turned toward Odette’s vanishing form. It was Odette whom he followed. The smile which dawned upon Paulette’s face ended in a little chuckle.

Three days later Jean was back with his copains. The evening he took his departure Paulette and Odette knelt side by side for a long time in the dusk of the little church.

The next news was that Italy, who had already broken with Austria-Hungary, had declared war on Germany. The battle of the Somme continued. Roumania, siding with the Allies, entered the war only to be utterly crushed. The end of the war appeared further off than ever.

The old joyous days seemed over for both Lucie and Annette. Tragedy was too near them. What was the outcome for France? Madame Guerin’s face grew grimmer and sharper. Madame Le Brun became more feeble. The days of fatness were over. So many things were scarce. Poor little Madame Le Brun fretted at the short rations, especially she missed sugar. “Of course,” she said, she was willing to make sacrifices for the soldiers, for her country, but why sugar?

“You are so childish, Marcelline,” said her sister. “Look at Lucie and Annette; they never make a complaint, and surely girls like sugar as well as you do.”

“They can eat anything, which I cannot do,” returned Madame Le Brun plaintively.

“I am sure, grandma, I am perfectly willing to give up anything but bare necessities, if it will do Gaspard any good,” said Annette.

“Well, but I have no Gaspard,” returned her grandmother with some asperity. “If I were young and romantic I might feel differently.”

“Poor grandmother,” said Annette to Lucie when they were alone, “I wish I had a ration of sugar to give her, for I do not mind in the least going without.”

“Nor I. If it does my father any good, I am willing to live on the very plainest fare.”

“I think we all feel that way, all except poor grandmother. She has been so accustomed to being considered and catered to that it is harder for her than most.”

“I think perhaps,” said Lucie after a pause, “that one should be thankful for opportunities of making sacrifices, for it certainly makes us stronger and more unselfish. I used to hate sorrow and trouble but now I can see the use of it, even though I do not enjoy it.”

Annette smiled. “I don’t believe there is even a saint who would expect us to enjoy trouble,” she answered. “We can accept it as a part of discipline, as Sister Marie Ottillia used to say, but we needn’t try to delight in it.” The two girls went on with their sewing very quietly for a while. “I haven’t heard from Gaspard for a long time,” Annette at last spoke her thought. “I don’t know whether that means good or bad news.”

“Odette would say good news,” responded Lucie. “She is an odd little one, that Odette. If she had lived in the days of Joan of Arc I believe that she too might have heard voices.”

“How Paulette dotes on her, and no wonder. Have you ever thought—?”

“Oh, yes, I have thought, but I do not say anything. One must wait till the war is over.”

“Must one? I shall not if Gaspard decides otherwise.”

“Perhaps that is why you have had no letters. He may be on his way home.”

“I have thought of that.”

“And it is why you are sewing so contentedly and are putting in so many fine stitches?”

“It is one reason.”

Lucie drew a little sigh. “It will be strange to think of you married, Annette. Here we are seeing each other daily just as we did before the war, and the time will come when you will be in one place and I in another.”

“Perhaps not. We might both continue to be here.”

“Oh, no, for as soon as we dare we must go back to have the home all ready for my mother.”

Annette was silent. She felt very uncertain that Lucie’s hopes were to be fulfilled. Then she briskly changed the subject. “Would you embroider this all the way around, or would you only put a little in front?”

Lucie gave the matter due consideration, but had not decided when there came a call from below stairs. “Annette, Annette. Come at once.”

Down went Annette’s work as she hastily ran to answer the call. Although Lucie was full of curiosity she decided that she would not follow. If she had been wanted the call would have included herself. So she sat quite still, presently looking around to see if Pom Pom were near. He could be relied upon not to be very far off, and this time was discovered under Lucie’s chair.

Annette was gone a long time, so that Lucie began to wonder what was keeping her and was about to go in search of her when her friend appeared, looking very flushed and excited. “It is so strange, so very strange,” she began, “just as we were talking of it.”

“Not trouble!” exclaimed Lucie, “not more trouble.”

“No, I hope not.” A little smile flitted across Annette’s face. “It is about Gaspard. He is coming, and—”

“And—.” Lucie looked her understanding.

“Yes, that is it. He wishes that we be married at once so that I can go back with him to Paris and spend the rest of his leave with him there. He has affairs to look after in Paris, you see, and cannot stay here for long.”

“And what is this at once?” asked Lucie, suddenly feeling very much grown up.

“Day after to-morrow,” replied Annette soberly. “He has six weeks leave, which gives him about a month in Paris.”

“And then you will come back here?”

“Oh, yes, to wait till the war is over and he returns to take up his life here at Coin-du-Pres, which will be my home forevermore, I suppose.”

“You like the idea? You would rather that than to go back to your old home next door to us?”

Annette shook her head. “That old home is no more. From what we have heard there is little to go back to. One must accept such things and be content.”

Lucie sighed. “I shall never be content till I get back there, even if there be not a tree nor a shrub left. It has been very wonderful that I could be with you here, and particularly now, but I could not stay during that forevermore, for I shall some day have my own home with my own parents, you see. It would be very queer, however, if I were not on hand to see you married. You are eighteen, and in another year I shall be that age, but it seems to me that it will be a long, a very long time before I shall be thinking of marriage. Just consider, Annette, it is probable that I have never seen the man I shall marry. I wonder what he is like. Perhaps I shall never marry at all. It is very likely to be that way, and I shall be perfectly satisfied, for with my father and mother whom else should I wish? unless it be my friend, Madame Gaspard Guerin. How funny that sounds.”

Annette, who had picked up her work again and was setting swift stitches, smiled as she repeated the name softly.

“It may not sound so strange to you,” Lucie chattered on, “for the name has always been familiar, but consider, Annette, what it may mean to me to have a perfectly strange name suddenly thrust upon me.”

Annette let her eyes rest for a moment upon her friend. “It may not be a strange name,” she remarked.

“Oh, yes, it will have to be, for I have not yet met the man that I mean to fall in love with.”

Annette tipped her head to one side and regarded Lucie reflectively. “You say funny things,” she asserted, “but all the same I repeat that it may not be an unfamiliar name; one never knows. Do you like the name of Guerin?” she asked after a pause.

“It is a very good name. I do not dislike it.”

“Which do you like better, the name of Gaspard or Victor?”

“Why, I don’t know. I never thought. I believe Victor—no, Gaspard. It is less common, although Victor sounds well, as if the owner might really be a victor.”

“Which I hope our Victor will be. You are going to be my bridesmaid of course, Lucie.”

“In refugee clothes?”

“Nonsense! This is a war wedding and it doesn’t matter what one wears. If my grandmother had not treasured her own wedding frock and had not insisted upon bringing it away rather than more sensible things, I should be without a proper gown myself. It will have to be altered a little, but Aunt Clothilde knows some one who will do that to-morrow.”

“And I shall have no wedding present for you,” Lucie went on sadly, “unless,” she added with a little laugh, “I can find you a volume of Dickens.”

Annette laughed, too. “How long ago that seems, and what children we were.”

“Three years is a long, long time. A month is a long time and you will be away for that long. I wonder what will happen before you get back?”

“Let us hope the war will end,” returned Annette, shaking out her sewing as she rose to put it away.

Gaspard arrived the next day and with him a young officer who was to be best man. His cousin had tried to get hold of Victor, but finding this an impossibility had pressed this comrade into service. Lucie looked speculatively at the young man, whose name was Adolph Favre, but made up her mind before very long that he was not the hero of her dreams, well meaning and courteous though he was, and quite inclined to pay especial compliments to her.

Because of the short notice everything was in a great flurry, of course. Madame Guerin was everywhere, directing, scolding, arranging. Madame Le Brun was divided between encouraging a headache and a desire to see all that was going on. Mons. Le Brun frowned one minute and smiled the next. He was fond of his little granddaughter and this marrying her to a soldier in war time involved some anxiety as to her future. He and Lucie had long talks whenever they found a chance, which was not often. Paulette, summoned from the fields with Odette, was turned into the kitchen to give her very capable assistance in the preparation of the feast. Michel was kept running errands here, there, everywhere, while Jules with the charrette was jogging into the village nearly every hour.

At last Annette in her grandmother’s ivory satin wedding gown was ready. Lucie in a simple white voilé attended her. The roses Annette carried were from the garden of Coin-du-Pres. The little bride looked very young and innocent. There was not a large wedding party but the small church was filled with the villagers, scarce a young man, but many old ones, were there, the doctor chief among them. Every one tried to be merry at the wedding breakfast but somehow merriment did not sit well; the times were too uncertain, so they finally lapsed into quiet talk, Gaspard and his friends ready to tell of thrilling adventures, which kept the others spellbound until the hour of departure was at hand.

It was Lucie and Odette who divested Annette of her bridal robes and got her into the simple traveling dress which she was to wear. Annette cried a little as she said good-by, but went off quite proud of her soldier husband, and of being called Madame.

Lucie begged to go into the kitchen to help Paulette and Odette to clear up. “It will be less lonely there,” she argued, so Madame Guerin gave permission, and in the drying of fine glass and china, the counting of silver, she passed away the first hours, chattering away to Odette about the events of the day. “She looked very sweet, didn’t she, Odette?” she began. “But so young, like a little girl. Gaspard appeared so much older. I hope he is not too old.”

Paulette laughed. “How old might this antiquity be?” she asked.

“He is three years older than Victor and Victor was eighteen just after the war began. That is three years ago or nearly so, therefore Victor is twenty-one and Gaspard twenty-four, six years older than Annette. In another year he will be twenty-five, which is far from young.”

Paulette laughed again. “Far from young is it? Ma foi, mademoiselle, what is one at forty?”

“He would be far too old for me to consider for a husband,” replied Lucie diplomatically.

“La la, there is time enough for you to be thinking of that.”

“But when one’s oldest friend has just married one cannot but think somewhat on the subject. I looked forward to meeting this Mons. Favre. Perhaps he is the one, I told myself, but after I saw him I decided he would never do.”

“It is not for little girls to be looking out for husbands,” said Paulette severely. “It is quite out of place. You should leave it to your parents.”

“I don’t intend to leave it to them altogether. I intend to have my say in the matter,” returned Lucie decidedly.

Paulette threw out her hands with a hopeless gesture. “This comes of having no proper guardian. If we hear any more of these too independent opinions, monsieur your father must be spoken to. You should be in a convent this minute.”

This was the most crushing speech Paulette had ever made to her and Lucie was properly subdued. She laid down the towel she held and marched out of the room, determining to hunt up Grandpa Le Brun, who would only laugh at her saucy speeches.

CHAPTER XVII
THE RETURN

WHEN Lucie watched the fluttering ends of Annette’s blue veil disappearing around the corner of the road as she drove away, Lucie little knew that it was the last she should see of her friend for many weeks. It was early spring. The United States had already severed diplomatic relations with Germany and every one was wondering what would happen next. Things were going badly in Russia, but Bagdad had been taken by the British, and the middle of March saw the evacuation by the Germans of French territory from Arras to Soissons.

It was the old doctor who brought the news that the United States had declared war upon Germany. He came driving up in his old cabriolet, and shouting “Vive la France! Vive les Américains!”

Lucie went out to greet him. “What is this? What is this?” she cried.

“Bon jour. Mlle. Demi-Américaine,” said the doctor. “One half of you should be extra proud this day.”

“Oh, why? why?”

“Because your mother’s countrymen have specifically declared war upon Germany. We have always known they were with us in spirit, but now we have this resounding fact. Soon, soon you will see the Stars and Stripes, at the head of American regiments who will be marching with our men. Paris has gone mad with joy. We have always known that we must win one day, but this brings the good day that much nearer.”

Lucie clasped her hands in delight. “The half of me that is American is very proud and glad,” she said, “and the other half is glad, too, not that those brave Americans must suffer, must die, but that their coming brings the end that much nearer.”

“Where is my good friend Antoine Le Brun this morning?” asked the doctor, leading his old white horse around to a hitching post.

“I will find him,” Lucie offered, and ran into the house calling: “Where are you, Grandpa Le Brun? The Americans are coming! The Americans are coming! The doctor has brought this good news.” She ran from room to room with her announcement, and after coming upon Mons. Le Brun at the back of the house, she sent him to join the doctor while she scurried down to Paulette whose spring work in the fields had begun.

She found her in violent altercation with old Jules, for these two seldom missed a chance for argument, out of which, it must be confessed, Paulette usually emerged with flying colors. “Such news! Such news!” cried Lucie as she came within hearing. “The Americans are with us. Their troops will be with us immediately.”

“Aha, my fine sir!” exclaimed Paulette, standing with arms akimbo and shaking her head. “What did I tell you?”

“Zut! I don’t believe a word of it. That is all talk. They will never come. Mark my words.” Jules wagged a skinny and earth-stained forefinger under Paulette’s nose.

“But it is true, I assure you,” persisted Lucie. “The doctor has just brought the news which he says is an absolute fact.”

“Well, let it be a fact,” responded Jules. “Admit that they will come. What are they? Raw, untrained savages. It will take months if not years to get them into any sort of shape. This hue and cry of ‘the Americans are coming!’ sounds very well to those who are easily fooled, but I, for one, am too wise a bird to be caught with such chaff.”

“A bird indeed,” scoffed Paulette contemptuously; “one of the variety that hisses in the barnyard and whose chief use is to supply feathers for beds.” She turned on her heel, leaving Jules stuttering with rage, and uttering epithets more forcible than polite.

“He is an imbecile, that,” remarked Paulette as she walked away to another part of the field. “I am getting very tired of him. These Americans, when do they come, and how soon will they rid the land of those Boches?”

“I suppose one cannot tell, but the doctor evidently believes it will be soon. I have heard him say that the moral effect upon the exhausted armies would be as great as the physical. He has been talking much of the Americans coming in and has put great faith upon them.”

“Then I suppose one may begin to think of returning home.”

“Oh, Paulette, do you really mean it?”

“Why not. Have I ever decided to remain here for the rest of my life? Not at all. It is well enough, this, but where I was born is better, and it is where I should choose to die.”

“But they say there is nothing there. What shall we do to go back to mere handfuls of earth, holes in the ground?”

“There will be more than that, I fancy. There has been destruction, of course, but I have asked and I am told that our little town has not been so hardly dealt with as some others.”

“If you go, then I go, too.”

“You will be better off here, more comfortable.”

“I do not care for that. I want to be there to help resurrect our home and be on the spot when my mother comes. She will come, Paulette, she will, she will. Odette believes it and what Odette believes generally happens.”

Paulette struck her hoe into the brown mold several times before she answered with a little twist of a smile: “Even Odette may not be counted upon as infallible.”

“But you admit she is generally right.”

“Generally, yes, generally, but not always.”

Lucie pondered on this truth rather mournfully, before she said, with a sigh: “If one must lose faith, Paulette, one may as well give up and die.”

“Very true, chérie. Keep your faith. I only wish to prepare you for the worst if it should come.”

Lucie shook her head. “No, I shall continue to follow Odette’s philosophy. One can never be prepared for the worst. If it comes, it is no harder a blow than if one expected it; if it does not come, one will then not have wasted time in grieving.”

She turned away and went back to the house to learn that another piece of news had come with the morning’s mail: Annette was going on to Marseilles with her husband, and would stay with him there until he should receive orders. He might be sent to Italy instead of to Turkey.

Close upon this news came a letter from Miss Lowndes to Lucie. The two had kept up a correspondence all this time, but this letter was of special interest, since it told of a certain undertaking in which Miss Lowndes would take part. “We are trying to restore the evacuated towns in the devastated areas,” she wrote, “and I am hoping that I will be sent to your native place. We hear that it is not so badly wrecked as some, and that some of the people have stayed on. We shall do our best to make these comfortable and the others too who are fast returning.”

Lucie lost no time in running out to Paulette with this letter. She was so out of breath and read so fast that Paulette was bewildered. “Stop, stop, my little one,” she cried. “I cannot keep up with this. Begin over again.”

Lucie began reading more slowly, Paulette making queer muttered exclamations as she continued. At the end the good woman wiped her eyes, then clasped her hands and cast a look heavenward. “At last,” she murmured. “Le bon Dieu restores us at last. Eh bien, my child, I am ready.”

“What shall we do first, Paulette, what shall we do?”

Paulette considered. “We write two letters, one to your father, one to the American young lady. We ask your father if he will permit that you accompany me and Odette back to the home. We ask the young lady when she departs and where we may join her. Then we wait for replies.”

“Excellent, Paulette. How much good sense you have. I will write these letters immediately, and get them off as soon as possible. In the meantime I will talk to Grandpa Le Brun and he will tell the others.” She started off, then came running back to ask: “Paulette, what about the money? Shall we have any to begin on?”

“I have all the wages I have earned here, or nearly all. Odette has hers, and then there is my allotment.” Paulette always talked very grandly of her allotment, but considering that the pay of a common soldier was but a sou a day, one can estimate that the amount paid her as mother of a poilu could not be very munificent.

“I have my allotment, too,” Lucie made the statement, “and of course papa will contribute what he can, just as he pays for my board here. We shall do very well, I believe.”

She went off to write her letters, and it may be stated that she left out no argument in pleading her cause. Then she took her confidence to Mons. Le Brun.

He looked quite aghast when she laid the plan before him. “But, my dear child,” he exclaimed, “this will never do in the world. The place is not yet safe. It is in a condition most wretched, most pathetic. The discomforts will be intolerable for you. Why not consent to remain with us until the war is over, and then if you must go back wait till things are in better condition?”

But Lucie was deaf to all these arguments. “It will have to depend altogether upon what my father says,” she maintained. “As for me I am as able as Mlle. Lowndes or any one to endure privations. If she, an American, can do this for France must I be deprived of what is plainly a duty?” So it was left to hear what Captain Du Bois would say, and Lucie possessed her soul in patience.

She had rather a long time to wait, but the answers came in course of time. First one from her father. He appreciated her feelings in the matter. He had been in communication with Miss Lowndes and had learned that she had asked to be sent to the town which had been, formerly, their home. There would be much to do, and she would be only too glad of helpers, and therefore if Lucie felt it her duty to go, there should be no restriction upon her act. She would best meet Miss Lowndes in Paris and place herself under her care.

Lucie showed the letter triumphantly to Mons. Le Brun. He read it, shook his head doubtfully, but made no further comment than “Eh bien, you go.” A little later he took to pacing the floor, stopped abruptly and exclaimed passionately: “I would to heaven I were going, too, but my wife would perish among such scenes. There is nothing to do but remain. We are too old to begin life over again in want and discomfort.”

Next came the letter from Miss Lowndes. She was enthusiastic. It would be wonderful to have Lucie as a companion, and that dear good Paulette who was a host in herself. They might have privations, probably would, but they would not starve, and it was a splendid work. A few of the better class of refugees were ready to return, though not many. The old curé was eager to head the returning company. They would start the last of the month.

Then there came a day when the basket which Paulette had so hurriedly packed for their flight was repacked for the return with the same utensils carefully hoarded all this time. “We shall need them,” remarked Paulette. The array of bundles and crates far exceeded that with which they had started forth from home, for contributions came from every quarter. The pair of chickens which Paulette had slung in their decapitated condition from her waist was increased to two pairs of live ones donated by Madame Guerin. A pair of rabbits, too, was offered as well as a couple of pigeons. Add to this menagerie Pom Pom, and the confusion of sounds may be imagined, though to the rabbits one cannot impute much of a racket. From none of these things would Paulette be parted. How she managed to dispose of them so that they would not interfere with one another is a puzzle, but manage she did. Lucie, of course, carried Pom Pom. Such acquisitions as Paulette would yield up to her Odette took in charge. Whatever was impossible of being transported by hand was sent on. With the prospect of Paulette’s disappearance from his path Jules ceased to be grouchy and these two parted with many polite expressions of mutual good-will. Michel was almost in tears, the housemaids wept openly. Mons. Le Brun slipped an envelope into Lucie’s hand, “For some one who may need it,” he whispered. Later on Lucie discovered the fifty franc note within.

“Au ’voir! Au ’voir!” followed them till they turned the corner of the road by the Calvary and the white house of Coin-du-Pres was lost to view. It had been truly a haven of refuge, and Lucie trembled a little as she realized that again she was launching out upon the wide sea of uncertainty.

At the station in Paris there was Miss Lowndes to meet them, looking a little older, a little thinner, but as bright and cheerful as ever. At sight of Paulette’s accumulations she was rather staggered for a moment, but she had seen too many refugees to be long nonplussed, and in an incredibly short space of time she had found a man with a handcart into which everything was bundled but the livestock from which Paulette absolutely refused to be parted.

Paris in June was a more attractive place than Paris in November, and Lucie was not sorry to be there. Her satisfaction increased, however, to real enthusiasm when Miss Lowndes told her that the first American troops had already landed and were expected in Paris the next day.

“And we shall see them, Lucie, we shall see them,” Miss Lowndes said to her. “I am so glad that we do not leave before that. I could not have stood it.”

“And we shall see them, Paulette and Odette, too?”

“Surely.”

“How wonderful, how wonderful! It may be that some of my own kin will be among them, although I have no means of finding out. I like to think it, however. Shall you have friends among them?”

“I think so and I shall look out for them, though I shall be so excited I doubt if I can distinguish any one.”

It took some diplomacy for Miss Lowndes to house these newcomers properly. Lucie she bore off to her own boarding house, Paulette and Odette were lodged near by with one Hortense Morand who kept the bakery from which Miss Lowndes’ rolls were served, and who, considering that it was for an exile, was willing to take in not only these two lodgers but the hens, the rabbits and the pigeons.

But if it was difficult to find lodgings for the little party, so much the more was it so to find a vantage point from which they could view the newly arrived troops. All Paris was agog. The streets were crowded, flags were flying, bands were playing. “I suppose there is nothing for us but to mix with the common herd,” declared Miss Lowndes, “and stand on the sidewalk. After all there might be a worse place, for we shall be nearer to the boys than higher up. Here, Lucie, pin on this little American flag. You, too, Paulette, and you, Odette. I think I can make myself known as an American and perhaps we shall receive some consideration in being given room.”

This proved not a bad idea, for they were allowed the edge of a curbstone when Miss Lowndes betrayed her nationality by her speech. They stood patiently for a long time, but at last the cheers began away down the street, growing nearer and nearer. There was enthusiasm enough for their own brave fellows, but when the tall, gaunt, clear-eyed young Americans came marching by, the crowd went wild. They cheered, they wept, they babbled fond blessings. They strewed flowers, they thrust gifts of chocolate into the hands of the smiling lads. They danced to the tune of Dixie; they laughed and kept time with the catchy ragtime music of the bands. The city was taken by storm, for these boys represented not only young America, but the inspirers of a new courage which should lead the way to peace.

Nora Lowndes forgot who she was, where she was, what she was. She was conscious only that these were her countrymen who had come for righteousness’ sake to give their best to France. “Bless every one of you,” she called out, and they, noting the familiar speech, cast smiling glances at her out of the corners of their eyes.

“It was worth waiting for,” sighed Miss Lowndes when the last man had passed. “I am sure I must have known some of them, but I was too dazed to tell. It is a great thing to leave Paris with such a memory as that.”

“I shall remember it forever,” Lucie answered. “I was never so proud of my mother’s country as I am to-day.”

This was the first sight they had of the khaki-clad youths, but it was far from being the last, for in that region to which they were going they were soon to become a familiar sight.

The next day they set out. An older lady joined them. Then two men, French, one American, took them in a motor car which had been designated for this service. More and more desolate the scene became as they advanced. Where had been smiling hamlets were only shattered walls, great shell holes, utter waste. As they went on toward abandoned districts, now evacuated by the enemy, there were more signs of life. The kindly green of grass covered silent places. Birds were singing, wild flowers blooming, but everywhere, everywhere were the rows of little crosses which marked the graves of those who no longer heard the birds or saw the flowers blooming above them.

It was a wearisome journey, for the way was difficult over the roughest of roads. The car was loaded to its fullest capacity for there were many necessities which they must take with them. More would follow as their plans developed. Long before they reached their destination silence had fallen upon the whole group, the silence of fatigue.

At last the car stopped. “This is the place, madam,” said the American driver to Mrs. Graves.

Lucie sprang to her feet and looked eagerly around. It looked strangely unfamiliar. There was the main street with the semblance of some of the houses still standing. The factory chimneys had disappeared. The church tower also. From a few of the houses arose a feeble wisp of smoke. Where were the trees, the gardens? From some forgotten corner a single rosebush reared its head to cast the fragrance of its blossoms upon the mild June air.

“Do you think you could locate your house, Lucie?” asked Miss Lowndes in a troubled voice.

Lucie alighted from the car and looked up and down the street. Finally she discovered the walls of the church, which were in fair condition.

“It should be over there,” she said at last, a little frown puckering her brow, “not very far beyond the church.”

“Drive that way slowly, Marcus, if you please,” said Mrs. Graves.

Slowly the car made its way up the street, both Lucie and Paulette keeping a sharp lookout. Paulette was the first to speak. “There it is,” she announced. “I see the little shed where we kept Ninette. It is still standing. The Le Bruns’ house is gone utterly, but the garden wall is standing there.”

“And some of our house,” put in Lucie eagerly. “One corner is quite destroyed, but I can recognize what is left.”

They left the car and began to examine the premises. The gardens of the two houses were choked with débris from the fallen buildings. The old cherry tree was nothing but a stump. They made their way over the piles of stone, brick and plaster. The house was an empty shell. Only the little shed was quite intact. “We can begin to live here,” remarked Paulette firmly.

Mrs. Graves looked dubiously at Miss Lowndes. “The other end of the town seems to be in better condition,” she remarked. “Perhaps we’d better go there.”

“You can go there, and I should advise you to,” said Paulette, “but for me I stay here.”

“And I too,” declared Odette.

Lucie caught Miss Lowndes’ hand. “Please don’t say I must leave them,” she cried.

“But, my dear, I am afraid you cannot be comfortable. Why not come with us? There seem to be several quite good houses left and I am sure we can find a better place to stay to-night. To-morrow we can see what we can do here.”

“But you don’t understand,” said Lucie agitatedly. “It is my home, my home. For three years, nearly, I have longed for it.”

“My dear, my dear, I do understand. Suppose we examine the shed and see what it looks like.”

They struggled over the stones to reach it to find it the one thing unchanged. Evidently it had not been used. The winds of winter had swept through it, the rains of spring had fallen upon it, but had not harmed it. Inside it was dry, warm, and if not quite clean, at least it was not so foul a place as that cow shed Lucie remembered.

Mrs. Graves and Miss Lowndes regarded it critically, then they exchanged glances. “You may bring in the cots, Marcus,” said Mrs. Graves.

In half an hour the shed was swept out, the cots set up, the bedding provided. Then, leaving the little family to do what they would, the two American ladies started out to find quarters for themselves.

After a little supper in the open Lucie went to explore, leaving Paulette to house her live stock. Pom Pom, in puzzled curiosity, went nosing all over the place. Lucie found the steps of the house and mounted them. The door was shivered to bits. She crept within the walls, avoiding bits of glass, slivers of wood, picking her way from spot to spot, trying to discover some token of what had been hers.

She was gone so long that Odette and Paulette went to look for her. They found her sitting on the topmost step, her head buried in her arm. She was sobbing her heart out, for the fragment of stuff which she clutched in her hand was a bit of the very dress her mother had worn the morning before she went away.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME

THERE was more of the town undisturbed than at first was apparent. To be sure the houses so left had been looted and everything of value carried off, but it was astonishing how soon Mrs. Graves and Miss Lowndes were able to make themselves comfortable with what was left and with what they were able to send for, yet it was very far from luxury at the best, and in great contrast to what they were accustomed to in their own homes. Refugees came creeping slowly back to be reëstablished as soon as possible. Many had been living in the cellars under the factories during the time of bombardment and afterward when the Germans were in possession. They did not complain of much ill treatment, but were underfed and sickly, telling many tragic tales of petty tyrannies and of the deportation of all the able-bodied persons in the town, as well as of the destruction of all the fine machines in the factories.

At their end of the town Paulette, Odette and Lucie worked feverishly. They were sure of food and shelter; the rest did not matter. Their energies were bent upon restoring the home so far as possible. First the débris around the shed was cleared to give them free exit and entrance, then the free space was enlarged by degrees. It was not easy to get helpers, for all were occupied in restoring their own, yet Miss Lowndes more than once came to the rescue by sending young Marcus, who loaded up his sturdy machine and carried off a lot of stuff in order that garden space might be had. Nothing could be done with the house at present, but it was found possible to enlarge the shed, construct some rough furniture and install a small stove. As all three lived mostly out-of-doors, they considered themselves not badly housed. By degrees shell holes in the garden were filled up, the earth uncovered and a late garden planted. It was a red-letter day when Lucie discovered that the cherry tree was sending up shoots from its roots and that there were some pale, greeny white sprouts around the grape vines which had been uncovered.

But the biggest surprise of all occurred one morning when she went out and saw sitting on a section of the wall, serenely washing his face, who, but Mousse! For an instant Lucie stared, scarcely believing her eyes. “It couldn’t really be,” she whispered to herself. “It must be some other cat like him.” Then she called: “Mousse, Mousse!” The cat paused in his ablutions, regarding her with a wary eye. She went nearer. The cat ran along the wall a little way, then sat down again to continue his morning toilet. Lucie watched him for a few moments, but fearing to drive him away did not move nearer. Presently she went cautiously to the shed where Paulette was getting breakfast. “Paulette, come out here,” she said; “I am sure that Mousse has returned.”

Paulette smiled. “But that is impossible.”

“I don’t see why. Come and see for yourself.”

“If it be Mousse he had a peculiar mark on one of his hind legs,” said Paulette. “Odette, watch the pot while I go to convince this imaginative child.”

They went out again, Pom Pom following closely at their heels. At sight of the cat Pom Pom gave one quick, sudden bark, but stopped short and with wagging tail approached the wall. With clasped hands Lucie watched the two creatures breathlessly. The cat on the wall did not stir, but gazed down with a blandly tolerant expression at the little dog. Pom Pom began to whine. The cat got up, stretched himself, exhibiting a diagonal line of white across one of his hind legs, and took a position where he could better observe the dog.

“You are right; it is Mousse,” declared Paulette, “and those two have not forgotten each other.” She began to call in a high shrill key as she was accustomed to do in the old days, and found her way slowly along the wall to the place where he sat. The cat did not budge as she drew nearer and nearer making beguiling sounds of invitation; he put his ears forward, listened for a moment, then walked along the wall toward her and jumped down upon her shoulder in his old manner of doing. He did not stay there, however, but leaped to the ground, and stood with bristling tail to face Pom Pom. The dog, however, not in the least disconcerted, kept his guard smiling, if a dog can be said to smile, and insinuatingly wagging his tail. Mousse stood his ground for a moment, fixing Pom Pom with a glittering eye, then his tail began to resume its normal size. He walked up to Pom Pom, the two touched noses and walked off amicably toward the shed. Pom Pom leading the way.

Paulette with hands on her hips laughed long and loudly. “That is a sight I never expected to see,” she declared, “and one I wouldn’t have missed.”

“Where do you suppose Mousse has lived all this time, and how has he found food?” said Lucie.

“There are plenty of rats and mice to be had for the hunting,” Paulette answered, “and it is not impossible that the Boches themselves have given him a bite now and then, though the wonder is they did not carry him away.”

“Perhaps there wasn’t time. He might have had the good sense to hide,” returned Lucie. “Well, Paulette, we are bound to have surprises. I wonder what the next one will be.”

“Let us hope it will be as pleasant as this,” responded Paulette, opening the door before which both cat and dog were standing. “That Mousse must be given food the first thing, though we have none to spare.”

“He shall have half my breakfast,” Lucie promised. But this Paulette would not allow, though Mousse was not to be permitted to go hungry, as a contribution from each one was given him.

“I doubt if he stays, after all,” said Paulette. And he did not at first, though by degrees he spent more and more time with his old friends, accepting Pom Pom with much better grace than in the days of his frisky youth. Possibly it was a case of “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

In course of time Paulette and Odette had a garden to work in. Les Dames Américaines, as they were called, enlarged their work so that in the neighborhood were established little farms where the people could raise their own food and where those soldiers no longer able to be of service at the front could find employment. Dispensaries and hospitals were likewise established, schools, too, and the discouraged people were given food, clothing, and medicines.

After other matters had been given the attention so sorely needed, a canteen was started where passing troops could be fed. On busy days Lucie was often summoned to help. It was after one of these days of rush and excitement that she was coming home and was startled at hearing a lusty but mellow voice singing: “Way down upon the Swanee river.” She stood stock-still waiting for the man to come up. What memories the old song brought. She must see who this was, an American, of course, for many had passed that way in the course of the past twenty-four hours. She waited till the khaki-clad figure was within speaking distance, then she saw that he was as black as the ace of spades, and that he bore a bandaged head. At last she was beholding one of those negroes of which her mother had so often told her. She would speak to him.

“Were you looking for the canteen?” she asked.

The man looked at her then burst into a cheerful guffaw. “Deed, miss, dat sho is perzackly what I is a lookin’ fo’,” he replied. “I done axed severial pussons but somehow dey doesn’t unnerstan’ my desires, an’ I ain’t ketched on to dis yere Frenchified langwidges yit. It sho does son’ good to me to yer ole United States.”

Lucie had some difficulty in taking in this speech herself, but it was clear that he wanted the canteen, and she decided to show him the way. “I think I’d better go with you,” she said. “Were you wounded?”

“Yas, miss, but not to say so bad, jes a little tech o’ shrapnel in de haid, but hit kep me at de dressin’ station an’ I kinder los’ sight o’ de res’ o’ de boys, so I pikes along de road by mahsef. Is yuh one o’ de America ladies dey done tells me about?”

“My mother is an American, but my father is French, so I can speak both French and English.”

“What part o’ de States is yo’ ma fum?”

“From Virginia.”

Another cheerful laugh greeted this information. “Ain’t it de troo? now, fum ole Ferginny. Das jes whar I comes fum. Yo ma is one o’ de fust famblies, I reckons.”

This was a trifle puzzling to Lucie but she replied that her mother’s maiden name was Randolph, which appeared entirely to corroborate the opinion of the man.

“Mah name Gus Fitchett,” he told Lucie, “and I comes ovah to fight dem Bushes fo’ dey git ready to draf me. We gwine bus’ ’em, too, yuh hyar me. We gwine chase ’em clar to Berlin, an’ den kick ’em downhill.” It was evidently not quite clear in his mind just what or where Berlin might be, but it was a word to conjure with, and he wished to impress upon Lucie his good intentions.

Presently the canteen was reached, Gus was conducted in and promptly served with a bowl of soup and a chunk of bread. While he was eating Lucie whispered her report of him to Miss Lowndes. “I never saw a black before,” she said, “but I was curious to see one, and when he began singing ‘The Old Folks at Home’ I knew he was not from any other place than my mother’s country. I can’t understand half he says, but I think he is very funny.”

Miss Lowndes laughed. “Bless you, child, I have been used to that kind of talk all my life. I wonder what we’d better do with him. With that wound on his head he shouldn’t be on the road by himself. I’ll find out where his regiment is, and Marcus can take him on; that will be best.” This was done, but it was not the last of Gus Fitchett, for in a few days he turned up again at the canteen.

“Well, Gus,” said Miss Lowndes, recognizing him, “you’re not lost again, are you?”

Gus grinned. “No, miss, I ain’t los’ dis time, I comes on a purpose. De cunnel, he say I ain’t fittin’ to be roun’ de mess, an’ he say I bettah lay by a few days, gimme leave, he say. He axes me does I wanter go to a res’ hospital, I says no, I doesn’t. He axes me whar does I wanter go, an’ I says ef hit jes de same to him I comes back whar dey talks lak I kin unnerstan’ ’em. He say whar dat. I say whar dat canteen are an’ dem nice Ferginny ladies, dat little specially one what got a muvver name o’ Randolph.”

“Well, Gus, we’ll have to fix you up,” said Miss Lowndes. “You’ll have to have a place to sleep.”

“I sleeps anywhar, on de flo’, in de barn, out o’ doors. Don’ mek no decrimination to me, no, miss, not a bit of decrimination.”

Miss Lowndes bit her lip and told him she would see that a place was found for him, for which interest he was grateful accordingly.

“Whar dat young lady live what bring me here?” he asked after partaking of the coffee Miss Lowndes offered him.

“Miss Lucie Du Bois? Why do you want to know?”

“Well, miss, she mighty nice an’ kin’, an’ I thinkin’ maybe I kin do some chores fo’ huh.”

“But you are away on sick leave; you shouldn’t be doing any work.”

“Doctah he say fo’ me to git outen de trenches an’ into de open a’r whar de guns isn’t so rambuctious. He don’t say nothin’ bout me doin’ little easy chores lak totin’ watah an’ fetchin’ in de wood.”

“Very well, Gus, if that is the way you feel about it, Miss Du Bois lives beyond the church. I will show you. When you leave her come back here to me and by that time I will have found a place for you.” She watched him on his way down the street, then she turned to Mrs. Graves. “I didn’t believe there was one of his variety left. He is an old timer. I’ll venture to say he was brought up by a grandmother of the good old sort.” In which conjecture she was perfectly right.

Lucie, working in the garden, was surprised to hear a soft voice at her side saying: “Miss Lucie, ain’t dey nothin’ I kin do fo’ yuh?”

Lucie looked up to see the tall form of the darkey. “Why, Gus,” she exclaimed. “How is it you are here?”

Gus explained, ending by saying: “’Pears to me lak it mo’ lak home folks when yo ma come fum ole Ferginny.”

“Are you homesick, Gus?” Lucie asked sympathetically.

“Well, Miss Lucie, I mought be ef I was by mahse’f with dese yer Frenchies, but bein’ as I’m hyar I ain’t.”

Lucie understood and was touched. His native state and her mother’s was the same, and he threw himself upon her tender mercies, so she set him to work, knowing he would be happier so. It was incredible what he accomplished in his week’s leave. He adopted the three women as “his fambly” with a niceness of distinction in his manner toward them which it would be difficult to analyze. He adored Lucie as the young lady of the house. He stood ready to carry out her every wish, and this in spite of aching head and tired frame, weakened by loss of blood.

“But there is no fighting yet between the Americans and the Germans,” Lucie said to him, “how then do you come to be wounded?”

“Hit happen dishaway,” replied Gus, very ready to recount the tale; “we alls marchin’ erlong de road. Den erlong come one o’ dese yer tu’key buzzard Bushes, flyin’, flyin’. ‘Look out,’ says de captain, an’ we alls jumps, but I ain’t jump fer enough, an’ I de onliest one git hit. I thinks ole Gabr’el blow his horn fo’ me sho nuff when de blood come a tricklin’ down mah face, but I reckons I good fer a while yet. De ole thing bus’ an t’ar up de groun fo’ all de worl lak ole bull. Miss Lucie, whar I gwine tote dish yer rubbage?”

“Over to the very back of the lot. We are trying to get the place cleaned up from the front backward, so as to have it look nice around the house when my mother gets back.”

“I wishes I had de time to cl’ar hit all up spankin’ clean fo’ yuh. I lak git de insides of de house all cl’ar.”

“You are helping such a lot, Gus. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Ain’t yo ma fum ole Ferginny?” was all the answer Gus vouchsafed.

At the end of his leave he took his departure, wistfully. He would do his duty, but he preferred the gentler ways, and would fain have lingered on, an obedient servant to a considerate young mistress. Even Paulette, who at first had regarded him with violent suspicion, came to see his merits and to appreciate his devotion. They were to hear of him again.

Under the directions of Les Dames Américaines the little town began to resume something of its old look. The good curé helped with his own hands to patch up the church. More and more of the residents returned; then one day there marched in a company of the boys from overseas. An officer looked for places to billet them. The factories whose chimneys were gone, but whose walls stood firm, gave room for a certain number. One of the better houses was taken as headquarters. The streets became full of erect young men who made friends with the children, hobnobbed with the old men, did friendly acts for the old women, and generally made themselves popular. One of the first to stroll into Miss Lowndes’s little office was a young Virginian who appeared more than usually eager to ask questions. He wore the stripes of a lieutenant.

“I am quartered here,” he began. “I wonder if you can tell me anything of the people who are living here and of those who did live here before the town was evacuated.”

“I think perhaps I can tell you something,” replied Miss Lowndes, smiling up into the frank blue eyes. “Was it some particular family you wanted to inquire about?”

“Well, yes—” he began, but was interrupted by the arrival of his captain who had a dozen things to ask about. Taking the first opportunity to say he would come in again, the young man saluted, and strode off down the street. Midway to the church he came face to face with a slender, brown-eyed girl behind whom trotted a small dog who once in a while favored one of his hind legs. “By Jove, that girl’s face looks familiar,” said the man aloud. “I know I have seen her before, but where?”

Lucie looked up and smiled. It might not be the thing to do, but he was an American and she felt kindly toward every one of them.

The smile was encouragement enough for the young man to take off his cap and say: “I beg your pardon, but haven’t we met before?” Then he gave an impatient gesture. “Bother,” he exclaimed, “of course she doesn’t speak English. Pardon, mademoiselle, mais-mais.” He paused helplessly.

Lucie smiled again. “Pardon me, monsieur, but I do speak English.”

“Good! I was sure we must have met, but I cannot remember where.”

“Nor I, monsieur.” She studied his face carefully, “and yet, and yet I seem to have seen you.”

“My name is Philip Randolph, from Virginia.”

“And I am Lucie Du Bois, a native of this place.”

“Not Lucie Du Bois, the daughter of Louise and Marcel Du Bois?”

“Those are the names of my parents.”

“Lucie, little Lucie! My blessed child, I am your uncle Phil!” And without further ceremony he put his arms around her and hugged her tight up to him, to the horror and dismay of an old woman nearing the church.

Blushing and laughing Lucie disengaged herself. “I am so glad, so very glad to see you,” she murmured.

“Let’s go somewhere and talk,” suggested Philip. “I haven’t heard a word from my sister since the first year of the war. We knew this town was occupied by the Germans for a time, that your father was at the front, but what had become of you all there seemed to be no way to find out.”

“There is much to tell,” replied Lucie, a look of sadness passing over her face. “Our home was nearly destroyed, but we are living in a part of it, at least—But here is Paulette. Perhaps you know who Paulette is.”

Paulette with an expression of outraged dignity approached. That Lucie should so far forget herself as to permit an ardent embrace in the eyes of the public, and, so far as she could see, from a perfectly unknown young man, was scandalous. The child must have gone mad.

Lucie, however, seemed not in the least ashamed. She ran to meet Paulette, seized her by the hands and urged her forward. “Such a surprise, Paulette,” she cried. “Who do you think this is?”

Paulette regarded the young man who stood smiling down at her. She shook her head uncompromisingly. “I have never seen monsieur before.”

“Of course you haven’t, but I have, although I don’t remember it, for I was only three years old when mama took me to see her people. This is my Uncle Philip, my very own uncle.”

“Monsieur!” Paulette clasped her hands rapturously. “I ask ten thousand pardons.”

“I am taking him home, Paulette, where we can talk. You will find us there when you come back.”

“I was only a little kid about twelve years old, but I remember what a darling child you were,” said Philip, as they continued their way.

“It is a long time, nearly fifteen years ago, and I am no more a child,” returned Lucie soberly.

“You have had hard times, then?”

“I will tell you.”

She took him to the pathetically poor little home and there she told him all. More than once during the recital he sprang from the broken step upon which they were sitting and paced the walk, biting his lip and muttering under his breath. At the close of her story he broke forth into rapid speech. “My sister! My sister! We must find her. If only I may be spared to look for her, to bring her back. I must try to get in touch with your father. You know where he is?”

Lucie gave him the address, which he carefully wrote down in his notebook.

“What a duffer to think I should find you all in some safe place. If I had only known. If I had only come sooner.”

“What could you have done, my uncle?”

“I don’t know, but I could have tried.”

“We have all tried, my father, our friends, our relatives. The German line is like a sealed wall, one cannot tell what goes on behind it, but we hope, always we hope. Others have come back and so will she. Now that you have come the war will soon be over.”

“Pray God it will. Couldn’t you find a better place than this to live in, Lucie? There are many quite good houses at the other end of the town.”

“Yes, but they are not ours; this is home.”

“You poor, dear, loyal little thing. I know that is the way all the French feel; a foot of earth that is their very own is worth more than another’s acres. Well, we shall have to see about getting a roof on your house, and some windows and doors set in. Has your father seen it?”

“No, we do not wish that he see it till we have it better.”

He smiled at her phrasing. “Well, I must be going. Time’s up. I shall try to see you every day. I don’t know how long we shall be here, not very long, I fancy. By the way, who is that peach of a girl at the canteen?”

“You mean Miss Lowndes? She is my very dear friend.”

“You show good taste. She is a perfect pippin.” And Philip walked off, leaving his little niece looking admiringly after him.

He made a second call upon Miss Lowndes the next morning. “I am Lieutenant Randolph,” he announced himself, “Lucie Du Bois’s uncle. She tells me you are a friend of hers, and I am wondering what we can do to better things for her. She shouldn’t be living in that little hovel all mixed up with the others. They may be used to it, but she isn’t.”

“She prefers it, you see. It has been her one desire to get back here to her old home, no matter in what condition it might be.”

“I understand that, and of course in mild weather it isn’t so hard, but in bad weather it must be awful. I have been trying to get in touch with my brother-in-law, Lucie’s father, but so far have not been able to do so.”

Miss Lowndes was silent for a moment, during which time she made repeated jabs with the point of her pencil into the pad before her. “Then you do not know,” she said presently, “that Lucie’s father has been taken prisoner.”

Philip made a muttered exclamation. “When did you hear?” he asked.

“Only to-day. I have not told Lucie, for I think it is enough for her to be concerned about her mother. Oh, do please hurry up and end this war.”

Philip smiled. “I think you may count on us to do our little best.”

“I am sure of that. You don’t know what faith we all are putting in you.”

“That’s what helps, too. But about Lucie. Isn’t there some way to get one of those little readymade houses?”

“We do get them, yes.”

“They are at least better than what she is living in, and could be used for some one else if the old house is ever rebuilt. It could be set up there alongside the shed, couldn’t it?”

“Surely.”

“Is it a feasible plan?”

“It looks so to me. I will inquire into it.”

“Thanks.” He held out his hand. “We may not be quartered here very long. Miss Lowndes. I may never return; that’s part of the game, you know, but before I leave I should like to feel satisfied that our little Lucie is housed better than a goat or a rabbit.”

“All right,” returned Miss Lowndes smiling, “we will do our best, I promise you. It is quite within our rights, of course.”

“If it is a question of funds,” Philip began.

“Of course that is a consideration. We have none to spare, of course.”

“So I surmised. I’ll foot the bill if you will put the thing over. Is it a go?”

“So far as I am concerned it certainly is. Come in to-morrow morning and I shall be able to tell you more about it, and I think we’d better not say anything to Lucie about her father until she asks questions.”

“I agree with you. I’ll come in to-morrow.”

Miss Lowndes watched him striding down the street, an erect soldierly fellow. “What a nice man he is! what an awfully nice man,” she said half aloud. “I hope he will be billeted here for a long time, for Lucie’s sake,” she added, though back of that wish was one for herself.

She saw him the next morning and the next and the next. In fact there was not a day during his stay that the two did not meet, if only for a moment.

CHAPTER XIX
JOY

THROUGH the combined efforts of Miss Lowndes, Philip Randolph and some others, the little house of four rooms was set up near the shed, the latter serving as a place in which to house the fowls, the rabbits and a goat which was the pride of Paulette’s heart. Of course all this was not accomplished at once, but her uncle had the satisfaction of seeing Lucie installed in her new home before he left the town. She parted from him with sorrow. He was something her very own, her mother’s brother, and the tie of blood was strong. She had learned, before this, of her father’s capture in a night raid when he had sacrificed himself to save his men. Jean brought them an account of it, and the honest fellow wept as he told of it. His “capitaine” was beloved above all men.

In August the French retook ground at Verdun which they had lost the year before. In October they won more ground north of the Aisne. In November came the first encounter between the Americans and the enemy. The latter part of the same month began the battle of Cambrai, when the big crawling tanks did their good work and the British won successes. And so the year went out with victory still hanging in the balance.

In all these months Lucie had seen nothing of Victor. She heard from Coin-du-Pres that Annette had returned, and the first of the year brought the wonderful news that there was a baby Gaspard. The little mother could speak of nothing else in her letters, and it was evident that the whole household was given over to adoring this new member of it.

The winter went quietly enough. There was much work in the canteen. In answer to hurry calls Lucie, Paulette and Odette would drop everything at home, in order to lend a hand in ladling soup and pouring coffee, returning home late at night, quite exhausted but with a warm glow of satisfaction at having been doing a service to France.

Then in March came the great drive. Nearer and nearer advanced the Germans. At one time it seemed as if they must sweep everything before them. The sound of threatening guns grew more and more menacing. The fires of burning villages lighted up the horizon. Lucie and Odette clung together wishing that they had never left Coin-du-Pres. Paulette with an expression of savage fury muttered as she went about her work. Then one morning came a messenger from Miss Lowndes. “We are preparing to evacuate the town. Be ready when you are called upon to leave.”

“Again? Not again?” cried Lucie aghast.

“That’s what it looks like,” said Marcus, the driver of the canteen motor car. “Fritzie is getting back at us. We’ve got to be ready.”

“How soon shall we have to go?”

“Can’t tell. I’ll let you know in time. All you’ve got to do is to be ready.”

He went off to continue his work of warning. Some of the people at once began to depart, refugees again; others sought safety in cellars, dreading a nearer roar of guns and the whistle of shells. Twenty-four hours of dread. No one slept that night. Who knew when a shell might come crashing down upon the town? Big Bertha was doing deadly work in Paris, what might not one expect here?

Then came the morning when out of their houses and cellars flocked the people. A shout went up. The three in the little new house ran to the gate. A boy was running up the street waving his arms and crying: “They’re driven back! They’re driven back! Vive la France!”

“We’re safe! We’re safe!” cried Lucie.

“For the moment,” returned Paulette. “I for one do not unpack.”

But though, as time went on, there was a swaying back and forth of the line, no farther in that direction did the foe advance. Not a shot fell in the town, and, beyond, the country was peaceful and smiling.

For days those in the little town waited tremblingly the German advance. Must they be driven out a second time? It seemed almost as if it must be so for many towns and villages which had been reëstablished were now being evacuated and the dwellers therein taken farther back to safety, with all their supplies and even their livestock, much of this the excellent work of the American Committee for Devastated France. As time went on and danger threatened more and more, it almost seemed that the big guns would be directed the next moment upon the town, and that the bombs would finish the work of destruction begun four years before. But beyond a certain point the enemy did not penetrate. The fields were unscathed, the buildings unscarred. The great Juggernaut of war had not crushed them.

There was much hard fighting, so many lives lost that Lucie at last came to be thankful that her father was out of it, even though his might not be an enviable position. At least she might hope that he would survive and that she could see him again. That veil of silence still covered her mother, while the Allies were continuing their triumphant advance, and town after town was liberated.

Then one day the veil was lifted. It was in October. Lucie, with her pigeons flocking around her, heard a sudden call from Odette. “Come, come quickly, there are persons coming up the street and I think they are looking for this house.”

Lucie went to the gate to see two men and a woman approaching. One was a soldier with an empty sleeve and wearing the French uniform. A second soldier was plainly an American, and as he came nearer Lucie distinguished her uncle Philip. The woman she did not recognize at the first instant, but presently with a wild cry of joy the girl darted out the gate to throw herself, sobbing hysterically, into the arms of her very own mother.

“Oh, mother, mother,” she murmured, clinging to her as if she could never let her go, “I knew you would come. I knew it. I never gave up hope, in all these years I never did. Let me look at you, my own mother, to be very sure.”

She looked very worn and much, very much, older, this dear mother, but the general appearance was the same. The two stood gazing at each other, lost to all else. Madame Du Bois’s abundant hair had grown thinner and showed streaks of gray. She was very thin, and the happy, buoyant expression she had always worn had given place to an expression of patient sadness. “You have changed, my little Lucie,” she said. “My little girl is gone and here is one almost a young lady in her place.”

“No, no, maman, I am still your little girl. I may have grown but my heart is still as you left it.” They clung and kissed again as if this were the sum of all desire.

After a while the young Frenchman spoke up. “Have you yet no word of greeting for an old friend, Lucie?” he asked.

She disengaged herself from her mother’s embrace to turn to him. “Victor!” she exclaimed, and held out both her hands. “This is wonderful, wonderful beyond words! And my uncle too. It is like a miracle, a vision, that you all three should appear at the same moment.”

Here Paulette came running out, gesticulating, crying, uttering disconnected words. “Madame, it is my dear madame! It is not then a shadow that I see, a spirit. Madame, if I but may embrace you, this Paulette who has never ceased to mourn for you.”

“My good Paulette, dear Paulette, that I should find you here so faithfully guarding my Lucie,” returned Madame Du Bois, kissing the good woman on each cheek. “I have heard, oh, yes, they have told me of your faithfulness, your care of my little child, for which I can never thank you enough.”

“And Odette, you must know her,” declared Lucie. “Oh, there is so much to tell. It will take years, years, to say it all.”

Odette, who had been keeping in the background, was brought forward, then Madame Du Bois caught sight of Pom Pom who was sniffing around trying to make up his mind if he should dash out the gate and bark or keep a respectful distance. “Pom Pom, you still have Pom Pom,” exclaimed Madame Du Bois.

At this instant Victor whistled, and unheeding gates and bars Pom Pom made a frantic effort, leaped over the gate and flew to his master, fawning at his feet and whimpering with joy. “He at least is glad to see me,” said Victor.

“Oh, but Victor,” Lucie turned to him, “I am glad to see you, and I am so grieved to see that you have been wounded. Tell me when and how.”

“That will keep,” returned he. “All I want is the assurance that you are glad to see me, even though I am not all here.”

They all went in to learn of the many, many things which had befallen each one since their parting.

“And where have you been, darling mother, all this time?” was Lucie’s first question.

“In a town which was held by the Germans till very recently. I was caught there on my way from home, and there I have been ever since.”

“Were you badly treated?”

“Sometimes better, sometimes worse; it depended on who was in command. I was obliged to work, at times, beyond my strength. I was fortunate not to be deported, as so many others were, but I think my claims to being American born spared me that.”

“Good!” exclaimed her brother.

“I sent you a message,” Madame Du Bois went on, “but I never knew whether it reached you. An old man in the town determined to try to escape. I knew of his intention, and sent the message which I knew would not incriminate him in any way if he were captured.”

“It did reach us,” Lucie told her, “and has been the one gleam of comfort that my father and I have had. You know, perhaps, mamma, about my father, and that dear grandfather has left us.”

“I have heard. Victor has told me some things, many things indeed, and Philip has told me others.” She sighed.

“Cheer up, Louise,” said her brother. “We’re driving those Boches clear out of sight, and before you know it there won’t be a spiked helmet this side the Rhine. We’re driving them fast.”

“Dear Philip,” said Madame Du Bois, looking at him affectionately. “I can’t believe that my baby brother has grown into this big, six-foot soldier. We must talk of things at home, for you know we have hardly touched upon that subject yet.”

“Why, when did you meet him?” inquired Lucie.

“Just before we started to come here from the canteen.”

“But this is even more strange. How was it?”

“Let Monsieur Victor tell you,” spoke up Philip, “while I talk to sister. I haven’t much time to spare this trip.”

Lucie turned to Victor. “Tell me,” she said.

“I met madame, your mother, in a town back there,” Victor commenced to say.

“But you were not fighting, of course. You were not with your company.”

“No, I had been in a hospital for this,” he touched his empty sleeve, “and was discharged, but I could not stay away, and when I learned that the towns were being evacuated, and that those who had been under German control were being liberated, I asked the boys to do something I could not do, so they did this and when your mother came through the place where I was I joined her and we came on together. I wanted to come, you know, to see—Pom Pom.”

“Look here,” Philip broke in, “it doesn’t seem to me that he’s telling that right. There’s too little of it. I can’t understand it all, you know, but I can make out quite a lot. Better let me tell it. The boy was just out of the hospital. He was to go home. Does he go? Not a bit of it. He works it so he gets permission to help at one of the Red Cross stations. He told them that he wished above all things to discover the whereabouts of one Madame Louise Du Bois. She was supposed to be interned in one of the towns held by the Germans, unless she had been deported to Germany. He talked so persistently and interested so many persons that the word was passed along and your precious mother was finally located and sent on to this Red Cross station where Mons. Victor Guerin met her and escorted her to her own home.”

“What is this he says?” asked Victor, hearing his name.

“Never mind,” said Lucie. “It is nothing to your discredit, Victor. In fact I find you a hero, you dear, good Victor, for you discovered my mother.”

“I did nothing at all. I simply made inquiries and asked others to do the same.”

“But it was through you that she was able to come home. You found her.”

“I did not find her. They of the Croix Rouge did that and sent us here. At the canteen in this town we find your uncle.”

“Aha!” exclaimed Lucie. “And how long, my sly uncle, had you been there?”

Philip colored up and laughed a trifle confusedly. “Really it was only a few minutes. I was coming here right away. As I was saying, Louise, mother would not say a word to discourage my coming.”

Lucie gently touched Victor’s empty sleeve. “It is very sad,” she said softly. “I wish I could tell you how I feel for you.”

“It is not so bad,” returned Victor cheerfully, though his eyes had a pathetic expression. “I have had the supreme joy of doing this much for France! I have given what I could of myself and have come out better than many of my comrades who have lost their sight or who must be entirely helpless the rest of their lives. I shall do very well, for it is my left arm, and I can have a most ingeniously contrived substitute.”

“I suppose he has told you of his Croix de Guerre.” Philip spoke again.

“You have the cross, Victor. Then you are a hero,” Lucie said.

“I deserved it no more than many another who did not receive it, yet I was very proud when they gave it to me at the hospital.”

“So am I proud, and so will your grandmother be. I suppose you will soon be going to Coin-du-Pres.”

“Yes, although just now it is rather a triste place. I think they would rather I did not come at once.”

“But why triste at this special time?”

“You have heard that my cousin Gaspard is no more? that he was killed on the Italian front?”

“Oh, no, Victor, I had not heard. Poor little Annette a widow! How very sad. What a blessed thing that she has her baby.”

“That is the great comfort.”

“And shall you go back to take Gaspard’s place?”

“I do not think so. I shall go for a time, of course. The little son is the heir, you realize that.”

“Yes, of course. Then what are your plans?”

“I have none as yet. I can have none.” He spoke quite mournfully, dejectedly, and Lucie felt a great wave of compassion sweep over her. Victor, always so joyous and gay, to be like this, like one who had looked into the very depths of misery and horror and who had not crept back yet to a place where he could behold brighter visions!

He went away with her uncle soon after, promising to return in the morning. She watched the pair going off down the street, one in horizon blue, the other in khaki, then she returned to her mother and the two talked till the October twilight deepened to dark.

Lucie wondered why, now that the sum of her greatest wish was granted, she did not feel more tranquil as she lay that night with wide-open eyes fixed upon a bright star which sent its beams through her little window. She concluded that it was because of her father and Annette, though she had been thinking less of them than of Victor and of Coin-du-Pres. Why should it not be a good thing for Victor to marry Annette, not yet of course, but after a while? She considered this possibility for a little time, but somehow did not care to continue the subject. Then she decided that a better plan would be to have her Uncle Philip marry Annette. It would keep him in France, and give Annette a near relationship. But suddenly she remembered her uncle’s look of confusion when she rallied him upon his tarrying at the canteen, and she came to the conclusion that this pretty plan was not to be depended upon. Was he spending the evening with Miss Lowndes, and where was Victor? She had not had any curiosity about this matter before now, but she at once began to wonder why Victor had not returned to spend the evening with his old friends. What was he doing? There were other girls in the town whom he had met in days gone by. Perhaps he was renewing old acquaintances. Victor—her mother—her father—Victor. It was the thought of Victor, after all, which found her dropping off at last to sleep.

She awoke in the morning with a new and delightful sense of something unusually pleasant. Her mother! She sat up in bed and looked across to the other side of the room where, upon a cot, her mother was sleeping peacefully. For some moments Lucie sat gazing at her, a flood tide of joy surging through her. It was no dream. She had believed. Odette had believed that this day would come and their faith was justified.

Presently her mother opened her eyes and smiled. Lucie sprang out of bed and went over to cuddle down in her embrace. To be sure the cot was narrow but neither minded that.

“We shall scarcely have room enough in this little house when papa comes,” said Lucie. “To be sure this is much better than the shed where we lived at first.”

“You are very confident that your father will come, dear child.”

“Of course, just as I was confident that you would come, and here you are. It was Uncle Philip, you know, who was instrumental in getting us this.”

“Dear Phil; he always was the most generous boy.”

“Weren’t you surprised to see him?”

“Surprised and overjoyed.”

“How did you happen to recognize him? You hadn’t seen him since he was a little boy.”

“I didn’t recognize him at first. Victor thought it would be well to stop at the canteen to inquire if you were still here. Philip was there talking to the young lady,—Miss Lowndes is her name?”

“Of course he would be,” Lucie interpolated the remark. “He talks a great deal to Miss Lowndes, I notice.”

“Does he? Well, he might spend his time in a worse way. At all events when Victor made his inquiries Philip turned around and looked very sharply at me. Then he came rushing over. ‘Louise, Louise,’ he cried, ‘is it really my sister Louise?’ I am sure I don’t know how he could tell, changed as I must be, but he did, so we hugged and kissed and cried, all of us. Miss Lowndes included, and then we came on.”

“How did you get to S——?”

“We came in a motor car belonging to the Red Cross.”

“The next joy will be the arrival of papa; then we shall all be at home together, all but dear grandfather. You learned about him and about poor little Annette, didn’t you?”

“I heard. It is very sad about Annette; she is so very young.”

“But I didn’t tell you about Mousse. He was prowling last night so you didn’t see him, but he has come back. Wasn’t it remarkable that he should have stayed all that time in the town? That first night, oh, mamma. I felt as if I should die. It was all so desolate, so forlorn. I found a piece of the blue dress you used to wear; it was down among the débris. It was only a bit of rag, and had been rained upon and shined upon till it was faded and queer, but it seemed like a part of you, and it almost broke my heart. Mother, mother, is it really you? Do you mind if I pinch you to see if you are flesh and blood?”

Her mother hugged her so closely as to prove herself no dream, whispering fond words all the while.

“And there is Pom Pom,” Lucie went on after a while. “I have a great deal to tell you about him. Oh, dear, I have just thought, I suppose I shall have to give him back to Victor.”

“Don’t you think Victor deserves that you should?”

“Oh, dear, yes. Mamma, if I begin to tell you everything about Victor, all the wonderful things he has done and what a wonderful friend he has been, we shall never get up for it will take till to-morrow morning. We shall have to select one subject each day. One day it will have to be Victor, another Pom Pom, another Paulette, another Odette, another Coin-du-Pres and Annette, and so on. I’m up!”

She sprang out of bed but continued to chatter away while she was dressing, then she ran down to see if the hens had laid any fresh eggs for her mother’s breakfast.

But it was not her father who next appeared on the scene; it was Jean. Though before this great things had taken place. The Allied armies’ victorious advance had brought them to the borders of peace, though it was not yet, and every one was excitedly expectant. October gave place to November, then, in a few days came the news of Austria’s desire to discuss an armistice. The end was near.

It was not long after this that Jean came. Lucie heard him talking to his mother in the garden, one morning very early. They were standing near the spot where the valuables were buried on that day of their flight. Paulette had cleared away the pile of dead branches. Lucie watched Jean strike his spade into the damp earth, and dig on steadily till he had come to one of the boxes. Lucie could stand it no longer, but slipped into her dress, threw something warm over her and ran down to view the unearthing. She called to Odette on the way and the two came out together.

The boxes were intact. Jean carried them into the house and opened them. Everything was there, although the papers were moldy and the silver tarnished. While Paulette was fussing over the boxes Odette went out to feed the chickens. Jean followed, saying he would fill up the hole made by the boxes.

A little while later Lucie looked out. The spade was still sticking up in the earth as Jean had left it. “I wonder what Jean is doing,” remarked Lucie.

Paulette chuckled. “He is occupying himself very agreeably, I fancy.”

Presently Odette came back, her big eyes soft with emotion. She went quickly to Paulette and held out her hands appealingly.

“I know all about it, little daughter,” said Paulette, kissing her on each cheek, “and it is as I wish. Le bon Dieu has answered my prayer.”

Odette looked shyly down at a ring on her hand. It was made of steel and set with a bit of blue glass. She held it out for Lucie to see. “Jean made it for me from a piece of a Boche’s helmet and the blue is from the cathedral at Rheims.” She softly kissed the ring, at the same time looking at Lucie to see if she understood.

Lucie turned to Paulette who stood smiling exultantly. “They are fianced,” she said, “and now I shall again have a daughter.”

CHAPTER XX
THE END IS PEACE

THE towers of the little church were gone, the bells, carried off by the Germans, could give forth no joyous peal, but there came a day when the small town joined the rest of the world in celebrating the news of the armistice. “Make a joyful noise, all ye lands,” quoted the old curé as he stood on the steps of the church and smiled indulgently upon the boys who were raising a tremendous din with any kind of thing that would furnish a noise. An old bugle, a sheet of tin and a hammer, cow bells and sheep bells, were in great requisition. There was a descent upon the kitchens, every boy carrying off whatsoever he could lay his hands upon, from a tin plate to a copper cauldron, and he did it unreproved. People stood in little knots talking excitedly, weeping, shouting, singing. Anything resembling a tricolor was waved, was hung from windows, was carried in parade upon the end of a stick. The last gun was fired at eleven A.M. At that hour from the church steps the old curé raised his hands in benediction before he began mass.

Lucie and Odette joined the marching throng to swell the volume of song when the strains of the Marseillaise arose above the din. An old man with an ancient cornet played the air, the boys beat wildly upon their improvised drums. Men, women and children joined in.

Presently at the end of the procession appeared a grinning black face. A negro soldier with a small American flag stuck in his hat, deftly rattled a set of bones and lent his voice to the singing with a fervor unmistakable even if his rendering of the words was peculiar:

“O, sarm city on,

Form a batty one,”

sang Gus Fitchett, then suddenly to the intense delight of the boys he broke into a series of pigeon wings, double shuffles, and cake walks, keeping time with his clattering bones. In a moment there was an end of the singing and Gus was the center of a group which cheered, applauded, urged him on till he stopped exhausted to wipe his perspiring face.

All at once he stiffened up rigidly and stood at attention as an American officer came up, whom he saluted. Philip Randolph, trying to repress a smile said authoritatively: “You black rascal, what are you up to?”

Gus gave a series of salutes. “Jes’ celebratin’, suh. Wah obah, suh.”

“You’ll be over, over in the guard house if you don’t look out,” said Philip. “Hallo, Lucie, are you in this, too?”

“Of course. Please don’t scold Gus; he is such a dear.”

“Oh, you know him, do you?”

“Indeed I do. He’ll fall at your feet if I tell him you’re my uncle from Virginia. Wasn’t his dancing wonderful?”

“Pretty good. I used to perform that way myself when I was a boy, but I never was quite as limber as that. To tell you the truth I haven’t had such a reminder of home since I left. It’s lucky I know his kind or he’d be reported. What about this—Gus is his name?”

“I don’t know. I suppose he is on leave. He heads straight for this place the minute he gets a furlough, and all because I was good to him that first day when he came in with a broken head. The war is over, really?”

“Practically, though, confound it, my regiment wasn’t in the front line when they sent over the last shot. I’m here instead of there.”

“On leave?”

“On my way from Paris, official business.”

“But you will be coming back this way again soon?”

“I hope so.”

“And when do you return home?”

“That’s something no fellow can find out. I may hang around for months, may go any time. I must run in for a brief moment to see your mother and then I’m off.”

After his one day of proud celebration when he enjoyed to the fullest his position as central attraction, Gus Fitchett faded out of sight, and was seen no more in those parts, though one day, weeks later, came a postcard from Boulogne, a gay and giddy Christmas card bearing in crooked and weird handwriting Lucie’s name. “Mery Crismuss and good-by Mis Lucy. I salin fo home,” it read.

Meanwhile those who lived at S—— watched and waited for news of returning prisoners. By the end of November a million and a half had been released and were finding their way back to France. It was not to be supposed that the friends of Captain Du Bois would overlook him, or that they would fail to see, providing he were still alive, that he reached home safely. The Y.M.C.A., the Salvation Army, the Knights of Columbus, helped the army in their task of feeding and directing these returned prisoners. Many of them were in a pitiable condition; others were not in so bad a state as it was feared they would be. All were underfed, many were ill.

It was just before Christmas. The little house of the Du Bois’s was warm and snug, cold though it was outside. Madame Du Bois and Lucie occupied one of the upstairs rooms; Paulette and Odette the other. The fowls, the rabbits, the goat were safely and comfortably housed in the shed. From the kitchen issued savory odors. Mousse, in his usual Sybaritic way, sought out the warmest spot near the stove there. In the next room Madame Du Bois was sewing. She had regained some of her charming air of distinction. Her soft hair, though showing streaks of gray, was shining and prettily arranged. Her dress, simple enough, sat well upon her graceful figure. Lucie, too, since her mother’s return had more the appearance of one delicately bred. Pom Pom was curled up at her feet. There was silver on the table and a bit of green in a tall vase gave an attempt at Christmas decoration. The room held a few chairs, a table, a set of shelves, a divan cot covered with a homespun quilt, found back in the country where Miss Lowndes had taken Madame Du Bois and Lucie one day on a foraging expedition. On the same day they had been able to get some crude mats for the floor, which added to the room’s look of comfort.

“Mamma,” said Lucie, suddenly raising her head, “do you know that Jean and Odette have decided to be married at Easter. Paulette has said so and that settles it. She made up her mind long ago that those two should marry, and had Jean all in a state of mind to agree, though I must say that it wasn’t hard to persuade him, for he loves Odette and she loves him, which is very fortunate. Mamma, is that the way you are going to do?”

“What way, dear daughter?”

“Pick out some one and say to me: here’s your husband.”

Madame Du Bois smiled. “Isn’t it rather early to begin to worry about that?”

“Why, I don’t know. Look at Annette, engaged, married, widowed by the time she was nineteen. Of course, dearest mother, I love you too much to marry any one against your wishes, but I do want to choose my own husband just as you did.”

“Have you any one in mind?” Madame Du Bois was still smiling.

“I haven’t quite decided, though I think perhaps I shall marry an American, they are so nice and polite and kind. I love to see the way they make friends with the children. The only trouble is that he would want to take me home to his own country. Some of those who come to the canteen are very good looking. Uncle Phil has promised to bring some of those he knows over here to see us, though he hasn’t done it yet. I think maybe he wants to keep them from seeing Miss Lowndes. Don’t you think he likes Miss Lowndes very much?”

“Very much, and she is a lovely girl. Well, dear daughter, so long as you are still casting about in your mind for a proper person to fall in love with I do not think we may have any uneasiness about the state of your heart.”

“Of course I have an ideal,” Lucie continued the subject. “Sometimes I am very certain he is an American; again I tell myself I could only marry a Frenchman, a soldier of France, of course. I do so adore my France, and I might not like the United States. It is very hard to decide,” she sighed.

After a silence she spoke again. “Annette was not really in love with Gaspard, though she loved him very much after they were married. I’d love to see her and the baby.”

“Now that the war is over you may have the chance of going again to Coin-du-Pres. I should like to go there myself to thank them in person for their goodness to you, and to see our good neighbors again. I suppose for the present Victor will stay there, and in course of time he may marry Annette. It would be an excellent arrangement.”

“Oh, mamma, do you think so?”

“Certainly; an admirable arrangement.”

“They are cousins.”

“Not very nearly related, not too near.”

Lucie dropped the work she was engaged upon and sat for a long time gazing into the fire.

Her meditations were broken in upon by the sound of voices outside. She sprang to her feet. “Mother,” she breathed, “if it should be!”

Madame Du Bois arose and stood shaking nervously. “I am still easily unstrung,” she murmured weakly. “Go and see who it is, Lucie.”

Pom Pom pricked up his ears and growled, then whined to be let out. Lucie went to the door. Two men stood there; one was Jean, easily enough recognized, the second she could not at once identify. But presently she gave a wild cry. “It is! It is! Mother, come quickly; it is papa!”

And so it was, very thin and haggard, rather weakly trembling, but unharmed. For a while there were more tears than smiles, but they were tears of joy.

Upon the scarred and tortured land descended the spirit of Christmas. In spite of countless crosses, stretching mile after mile across the country, in spite of deserted firesides, of blackened ruins, of sickening memories and mourning hearts, there was peace. The children of France gave reverent thanks and rejoiced that their beloved land, torn, despoiled, devastated though it was, still remained their own land.

“In her children lie her hopes,” said the old curé, stopping to speak to Captain Du Bois. “The flower of our country has been cut down, but the roots are there and from them will spring up a new race of men. There is much to do, my dear Marcel, but it will be accomplished in time. It may be years before we see the land restored; it may not be in my day, but in yours. Oh, yes, I have faith to believe it will not be many years before France will be as radiantly lovely as ever. We have suffered, but we do not despair, and we shall learn how blessed is work. You build up your chimneys again. Marcel?” He looked toward the factories.

“I hope to,” replied Captain Du Bois. “It must be a question of time, of course. I am not so hale as I was, and wish I might unite my experience to the enthusiasm of a younger man.”

The curé nodded. “That may work out. One cannot tell. The ways of Heaven are manifold. The hour and the man frequently arrive together. It will be a happy day for me when I see our town restored to some of its former usefulness and beauty. It will come, Marcel; it will come. Much has been taken, but much is left.” He raised his hand in blessing and the two parted. Captain Du Bois watched the good man in his shabby soutane as he went on up the street, and felt warmed by the fine fire of faith and hope which illumined the face of this good friend who had lost so much and who yet maintained his simple belief in the higher orderings of Heaven.

“Much has been taken, but much is left,” pondered Marcel Du Bois as he entered his little home. His wife, his daughter, these two best blessings were left. He went in smiling and put an arm around each. “Much has been taken, but much is left,” he quoted. “Another Christmas, perhaps, shall see the factory chimneys smoking, shall see our old home restored, life again something as it was before the war.”

“And what shall we do with this little house?” asked Lucie, leaning back against his shoulder and looking up at him.

“This little house? We’ll have to let Paulette, Jean and Odette live in it, unless you are counting upon it to use as a doll house.”

“A doll house,” cried Lucie contemptuously. “Why, papa, I am grown up.”

“Really?” He smiled. “I haven’t discovered it. We have those four years, your mother and I, four years of your childhood to make up. We have been cheated out of them, and we cannot consider you grown up till we have been paid back those lost years.”

“Oh, papa!” Lucie looked quite taken aback.

“Four years,” he repeated, laughing and pinching her cheek.

A week later appeared Victor. The meeting between the older and the younger soldier was good to see. For the time being Lucie felt herself a person of small consequence. Victor was absorbed in her father, he in Victor. After the first half hour Lucie slipped away. She was not grown up; no one considered her so. Even her old playmate treated her like the child she felt herself to be. She threw something around her and went out into the garden, now winter-locked. She looked back to see if Pom Pom were following, but he was all too content to be within reach of Victor’s hand, within sound of his voice. She sighed as she looked at the broken wall separating her own garden from that which was now a wilderness. Those good old days! No more Annette; no more those lightsome hours of play.

The kitchen door was open. She heard Paulette and Odette talking inside. “He will marry Mlle. Annette, Madame Gaspard, I should say,” she heard Paulette’s voice.

“I do not believe it,” answered Odette.

“And why not?” Paulette asked. “Of course one must give them time, but it is plain to every one that it would be the best arrangement.”

“I do not think those two will ever marry,” Odette maintained.

“One gives you credit for much good sense, my daughter,” laughed Paulette, “but you are too young to know everything. I say the thing will be accomplished and I am not the only one who thinks so.”

Lucie gave a little impatient kick at a bit of stone in her path, and waited to hear no more, but went on to visit the rabbits. She felt very lonely. She had few girl acquaintances in the town and those she had known were now far away, safely sheltered in some convent school. Why was every one so bent upon talking about Annette and Victor? and why had Victor just now greeted her in that slightly embarrassed, slightly distant manner? Heretofore he had always been so cordial, so unconsciously natural. What was it that made the difference? It must be as Paulette surmised.

She entered the little shed and sat down to take a baby bunny in her lap, stroking the small creature’s long, soft ears. “And there is Pom Pom,” she soliloquized, “even he will not miss me so much once he is again in Victor’s hands. Odette thinks of no one but Jean, and Annette has her baby. I have my beloved parents, ungrateful that I am, but it is hard to feel one’s self slipping into second place, third place, no place in the affections of one’s friends.” She sat there for some time nursing the little baby rabbit. She saw her father and Victor go out the gate, Pom Pom at their heels. The two men were talking earnestly as they moved off down the street. After a time Lucie put the rabbit back with his brothers and sisters, then she went into the house.

Her mother looked up brightly as she came in. “Where have you been, dear daughter?”

Lucie smiled somewhat wofully. “Out in the shed with the rabbits.”

“You couldn’t have found them very lively companions.”

“No, but they were better than none. I meant to go down to see Miss Lowndes, but I saw papa and Victor walking off in that direction and thought I’d better wait till the coast was clear.”

“For the possible meeting of that ideal American soldier you were talking of the other day?”

“Maybe. Miss Lowndes is going very soon. Every one is deserting me.”

“Why, my dear.” Her mother looked up, surprising tears in her daughter’s eyes. “Why are you so melancholy, dear little girl?”

“Miss Lowndes is going, and Uncle Philip cannot stay very long on this side the world.”

“But from the looks of things we shall see them both again, and together, in all probability.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t help the present parting.”

“But think what pleasure we shall have in looking forward to seeing them again. Some day we shall be going over to my old home and there you will find Miss Lowndes transformed into a new aunt. That should make you very happy, as it does me.”

“Yes, I shall like that.” Lucie brightened a little, though she said rather mournfully, “I’m afraid I shall appear very ignorant to those relatives over there. Miss Lowndes knows such a lot about everything.”

“Well, dear, we know your education has been neglected of late, but we shall find a good school for you. Those four years your father spoke of, they will have to be made up, though we shall not be satisfied to send you too far from us after this long separation.”

“But why at all? Cannot we find a teacher here?”

“We shall see; we shall see. The main thing is to make up for lost time. There are many girls like you who will be wanting to begin their studies where they left off four years ago, and the opportunities will come. It is wonderful what has been done already for the children orphaned or stranded.”

Lucie did not reply to this, but presently she said: “I suppose the time is coming when I must give back Pom Pom, that hurts dreadfully, and there is Odette going to marry.”

“But you are delighted at that. You wouldn’t alter that fact, I am sure.”

“No, no. And Annette—”

“But Annette is no new grievance; that has become quite an old story, hasn’t it?”

“Ye-es, but there Victor comes in. We have been such comrades. I have been going over it all out there in the shed. I can’t forget that day when he met me on the road after that night in the cow shed, and we dug out Long Ears. He was so wonderful.”

“Long Ears was?”

“No, no, it is Victor I am talking about. Then that day of the shoes when he was so clever about getting my footprint. That was a heavenly day to remember. Then when he made the secret about going to Coin-du-Pres; he was so happy over it. And now I must think of those things no more, for if he marries Annette they will be absorbed in one another and I shall no longer be first with any friend. It is very hard to be superseded.”

Her mother drew her down upon her lap and kissed her. “I suppose it is the end of the year which brings these melancholy thoughts; it can be nothing else, of course. Cheer up, dear child, who knows what unknown knight may not be riding along to meet you in the new year, that ideal knight of yours.”

Lucie drew a long sigh, but said nothing.

“Here come your father and Victor,” her mother glanced out the window; “let us hear what good news they have to tell.”

“Where have they been?”

“Looking over the factory. Does it seem promising?” she asked as the two men came in.

“Very promising,” replied her husband, nodding with a satisfied air. “There seems to be but one thing left to settle.” He glanced at Lucie, who still sat, with downcast eyes, upon her mother’s knee.

Madame Du Bois smiled and lifted her eyebrows suggestively as she turned to Victor. “And what about Coin-du-Pres?” she asked.

“That depends,” answered the young man hesitatingly, and also glancing at Lucie. “The other alternative, naturally, is much more to be desired.”

Lucie glanced up quickly. What did he mean?

A rather embarrassed silence fell upon the group. It was broken by Captain Du Bois, who went over and stood in front of Lucie and her mother.

“Dear daughter,” he said, “you know very well that your mother and I fell in love in the old-fashioned way, and we have always said that we meant our child should have the same freedom of choice when the time came. There happens, however, to arise an occasion when we must ask you to help us in a decision. I am hoping to reëstablish my business, and Heaven seems to have sent to me one who of all men I should choose to associate with me as junior partner. Our good friend Victor Guerin prefers commercial life here rather than life on a farm at Coin-du-Pres, but there are conditions which only you can carry out. Victor will consent to be my partner only if he can also be my son-in-law. He has loved you very loyally, served you very faithfully, dear daughter.”

Lucie’s head drooped very low. Her cheeks were crimson, but she appeared unable to make any reply.

“Of course this is all in the future,” her father went on, “for your school days are not over and it will take a long time to get the business running again, but it must be you who shall decide whether Victor stay or go, and the decision must be guided not by any interest for me, but entirely by what your own heart says. If you decide against him, Victor will return to Coin-du-Pres to carry out the plans which seem best there.”

Lucie looked across her father at Victor, who was leaning forward watching her with all his heart in his eyes. “You mean—?”

“That I shall do what seems to be the desire of my family, should this project fail. I am not a farmer, but I shall try to become one. I am not in love with Annette, nor she with me, but—”

Lucie sprang to her feet and ran to him, holding out both hands. “Oh, Victor,” she cried, “please don’t go back to Coin-du-Pres. If you marry Annette I shall be perfectly miserable.”

She ran back to her mother to hide her burning face. “I don’t want the American knight to ride out of the new year. It is Victor, Victor I want,” she whispered.

“I have known that for a long time,” her mother whispered back, half laughing. Victor came over, found one of Lucie’s hands and kissed it softly, then he rose to face Captain Du Bois.

“God bless you, my son,” said Lucie’s father. “Vive la France!”

So Odette was right again, and if ever a year, begun evilly, went out happily so did 1918 that night. What the new year might bring who could tell, but that it promised hope, happiness and peace was not to be questioned.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.

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Table of Contents

- A LITTLE MAID OF PICARDY
- Contents
- CHAPTER I A GARDEN GROWS
- CHAPTER II THE FIRST BREAK
- CHAPTER III WE GO
- CHAPTER IV A LONELY NIGHT
- CHAPTER V WELL MET
- CHAPTER VI MORE WAYS THAN ONE
- CHAPTER VII A STRANGE GARRET
- CHAPTER VIII A BIT OF SKY
- CHAPTER IX SHOES
- CHAPTER X NENETTE AND RINTINTIN
- CHAPTER XI A DOG AND HIS DAY
- CHAPTER XII TERRORS BY NIGHT
- CHAPTER XIII OLD FRIENDS AND NEW
- CHAPTER XIV LE-COIN-DU-PRES
- CHAPTER XV GASPARD
- CHAPTER XVI UPS AND DOWNS
- CHAPTER XVII THE RETURN
- CHAPTER XVIII THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME
- CHAPTER XIX JOY
- CHAPTER XX THE END IS PEACE
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE