Joan laughed without raising her face. “Yes, ma’am, I know that,” she answered. “I’ll be good.” “Do you think it’s all true?” Joan whispered to her host.!

“Don’t make us out all alike,” pleaded his sister with a laugh. “There are still a few old-fashioned papers that do give their opponents fair play.” “Are you never coming again?” asked the child.

She walked home instead of taking the bus. She wanted to think. A day or two would decide the question. She determined that if the miracle did not happen, she would go down to Liverpool. Her father was on the committee of one of the great hospitals; and she knew one or two of the matrons. She would want to be doing something—to get out to the front, if possible. Maybe, her desire to serve was not altogether free from curiosity—from the craving for adventure. There’s a spice of the man even in the best of women. Space did not allow of any separation; broken Frenchmen and broken Germans would often lie side by side. Joan would wonder, with a grim smile to herself, what the patriotic Press of the different countries would have thought had they been there to have overheard the conversations. Neither France nor Germany appeared to be the enemy, but a thing called “They,” a mysterious power that worked its will upon them both from a place they always spoke of as “Back there.” One day the talk fell on courage. A young French soldier was holding forth when Joan entered the hut. He ceased speaking. No one seemed inclined to break the silence.